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Book__ 













Sylvia of the Stubbles 
























Printed in the United States of America 



Copyright , 1923 

b y 

The Reilly & Lee Co. 


All Rights Reserved 



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©C1A752811 V D 

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Sylvia of the Stubbles 

SEP '7 1923 / 





CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

I The White Butterfly. 7 

II Sylvia’s Birthday Wish. 27 

III The Poet’s Secret. 49 

IV Sylvia’s Great Adventure. 62 

V Clouds and Sunshine. 82 

VI The House of the Grouches. 104 

VII A Real Merry Christmas. 118 

VIII Daddy Jim’s First Deputy. 135 

IX Leah’s Hour of Trial. 146 

X The Interrupted Wedding. 164 

XI Sylvia at High School. 178 

XII Dr. Lynn’s “Little Girl”. 195 

XIII Sylvia Remembers. 216 

XIV Daddy Jim’s Story. 226 

XV “Happy Ever After”.240 






















Sylvia of the Stubbles 


CHAPTER I 

The White Butterfly 

T WAS morning at the Stubbles, that 
sparsely-settled little village hud¬ 
dled at the crossroads — barren and 
desolate to the passer-by who had 
not made the acquaintance of Sylvia and the 
Little Gray House, but to those upon whom her 
blue eyes and sunny smile had rested — a vale 
of sunshine and flowers. 

Petey Swanson, with unfailing patience, 
was sweeping a pile of damp sawdust along the 
foot-worn aisle of his little store, bobbing back 
and forth with his hobbling old gait, straighten¬ 
ing the pyramid of “ package goods,” shooing 
inquisitive flies from the plates of fruit in his 

front window, and flapping a blue calico duster 

7 




8 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

against the carved and whittled two-by-four of 
the rickety little porch. 

He stopped in the midst of one of the spasms 
of blue calico flappings and, shading his eyes 
with gnarled old fingers, gazed intently down 
the sun-dappled road that led past the railroad 
sidetrack and across the creek. A tall man’s 
figure was coming swiftly down the road with 
a light, half-dancing step. He wore a shabby 
black frock coat and a high silk hat; in his but¬ 
tonhole was a white rosebud; he clasped in his 
hand a graceful nosegay of blue bachelor but¬ 
tons and pink roses, and as he walked he softly 
sang a lilting song: 

“Oh, the Road was made for you and me, 

And every Flower and every Tree.” 

He stopped, a dreamy smile on his face, and 
called gravely to a great collie that followed 
him leisurely. “ Hurry, Jester, we must not 
keep the King waiting.” 

Petey Swanson shook his head dubiously as 
the two drew near. “ Luke, poor boy; poor 
Loony Luke,” he muttered to himself. 

The man and the dog had reached the store 


The White Butterfly 9 

and the former, with a low bow, swept the silk 
hat from his head, uncovering a thatch of sil¬ 
very-white hair. 

“ Good morning, Sir Swanson — I have 
brought thee flowers from the Queen’s garden 
— flowers for thee and Sylvia. 

“Pink flowers born with rosy dawn; 

Blue blossoms from the sky, 

To greet the Fairy Princess 
When she lightly dances by. 

“ Pray put them in thy window in the crystal 
bowl.” 

Petey took the flowers. “ You bane one 
gut poy, Poet, to gif me posies for mine shtore 
vindow and the little Fairy Princess, Sylvia. 
Von’t you stop and sit avile?” 

“ No, Sir Swanson, the Kingdom is patiently 
waiting for me to finish my book of poems, 
and I must write, write. Come Jester.” There 
was a dreamy look in the Poet’s deep brown 
eyes as he lovingly caressed the dog’s sleek 
head while the creature nuzzled the long sensi¬ 
tive fingers. “ The King’s Jester and I shall 
be down the road by the row of sunflowers, 


10 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

if we are wanted,” he said, and they took up 
their walk, on past the store, down the white 
road towards the clump of sunflowers, which 
cast ragged shadows on the tall grass. 

Petey Swanson put the flowers in a glass 
fruit jar and tears came into his hard old 
eyes as the fitful song was wafted back: 

“ Oh, the Road was made for you and me, 

And every Flower and every Tree.” 

“ Poor boy! Poor Luke! He bane queer — 
too much books. But he bane a Poet, and I 
luf him! And little Sylvia — she bane queer 
little shild, too — a queer pair dose two, but 
I luf dem both!” 

Half a mile down the crossroad, in the 
Little Gray House at the very edge of the 
Stubbles, Sylvia was bustling about the sunny 
kitchen, washing the breakfast dishes with a 
gentle clatter of cups and spoons. The soft 
June breeze fluttered the white sash curtain 
at the window and carried puffs of summer 
fragrance across the room. 

“ Now, Minerva, hurry and finish washing 
your face because we’re goin’ on a picnic just 
as soon as I get this cup wiped ’n put away,” 


The White Butterfly 11 

she said, addressing the gray angora kitten in 
the patch of sunshine on the floor before the 
open door. “ I’ve got our lunch packed in a 
basket — there’s a little tin pail with some 
milk for you — ’n three sugar cookies that 
Granny Evans gave me yesterday, ’n six great 
big, beau’ful red strawberries that Daddy Jim 
picked for me. O’ course, if you liked straw¬ 
berries and sugar cookies, Minerva, I’d be 
glad to give you half.” 

Minerva stopped washing her face a moment 
to chase a fleeting shadow. 

“ Daddy Jim says we can stay until after¬ 
noon ’cause he’s working so far out in the 
fields to-day he won’t be back to dinner. And 
on our way back we’re going to stop at Mrs. 
Jones’ house, Minerva, ’n see how the little 
sick Jones baby is today. Poor little thing! 
But it’s got to be better — it mustn’t die, ’cause 
Daddy Jim says if it dies, Mr. Jones will go 
to the bad — just think, Minerva!” 

She lifted the gray kitten and tucked it under 
her arm, took the tiny basket of lunch and 
together they started down the road apicknick- 
ing. 


12 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

They had gone some distance when Minerva, 
her kitten patience teased to the utmost by the 
nodding weeds along the roadside, wriggled 
from her little mistress’s arm and bounded off 
into the tall grass. Sylvia set down the basket, 
pushed her sunbonnet back from her hot little 
face, and took a deep whiff of the warm, 
fragrant air. 

“ Oh,” she breathed, stretching out her 
chubby brown arms to the warm sun and the 
gentle breeze, “ I could purr, just like 
Minerva.” 

The sun rose higher and higher, and the 
June breeze played over the tall grasses, bend¬ 
ing their heads with one accord as it passed. 
It reminded Sylvia of the people in church, 
when the minister said: “ Let us pray.” 

The summer day wore on. They ate their 
lunch and romped in the fields. And then 
Sylvia saw the White Butterfly! It came flying 
from the direction of the Joneses’ place a mile 
down the road, and paused above a wild rose¬ 
bush, its gauzy wings quivering as it alighted 
on one of the pale blossoms! Sylvia gazed at 
it in breathless wonder. It was very beautiful 


The White Butterfly 13 

with its frail white wings, faintly streaked as 
if with strokes from a fairy paintbrush. But 
it was not its beauty which made Sylvia’s eyes 
grow big with awe. 

No, indeed. She knew a wonderful secret 
about white butterflies. She did not know 
where she had learned it, nor how, nor when. 
It was like a half-forgotten dream. Yet when¬ 
ever she saw a white butterfly she seemed to 
see a beautiful garden — more lovely, even, 
than the Lonely Lady’s, upon the hill beyond 
the creek — where there were wide green lawns 
and hedges and a tinkling fountain and fallen 
rainbows of flowers. There on a rustic seat 
beneath the great elm, sat a beautiful Dream 
Lady, who was strangely like her mother; and 
near her played a child who seemed to be 
herself, flitting about among the flower beds 
chasing butterflies. The child caught one and 
carried it gleefully to the Dream Lady. 

“ Let it go, dear,” she had said, freeing it 
with gentle fingers. “ I think white butterflies 
are the Souls of Little Babies who have just 
died, on their way to Heaven! ” 

Perhaps it was only a dream after all. Per- 


14 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

haps the birds or the bees or the flowers had 
whispered it to her, or perhaps the Poet had 
told her. But wherever she had learned it, she 
was sure that her secret was true. 

Then the Jones baby must be dead. It had 
been very, very ill, and the Joneses were very, 
very poor — too poor to have a doctor, Sylvia 
knew—and the butterfly had certainly come 
from the direction of their little cottage, and 
now Mr. Jones would go to the bad! Sylvia 
didn’t know just what “ going to the bad ” 
meant, but it had a portentous sound that 
made her think of big black monsters with 
fiery breath and frightful claws, and she knew 
by the way Daddy Jim had shaken his head 
when he said it, that it meant something ter¬ 
rible. She didn’t want Dave Jones to go to 
the bad, for she remembered how tired and 
sweet and sad Mrs. Jones had looked once 
when she had come to church, and how she 
had smiled a motherly sort of smile when 
Sylvia had looked at her over the back of the 
seat. 

Suddenly a thought seized Sylvia that made 
her catch her breath. What if she could cap- 


The White Butterfly 15 

ture the little white butterfly — the Jones baby’s 
soul — before it got any farther on its way to 
Heaven, and take it back to the sad, tired 
mother! 

She darted towards the rosebush, but the 
fairy thing with fluttering wings was up and 
away, floating from weed to flower, from flower 
to grass, drifting lazily with the June breeze, 
always just out of reach of Sylvia’s hands. 
On and on she ran, clutching at the little crea¬ 
ture, in vain, alternately pleading and scolding: 

“ See here, Jones Baby, you must go back 
to your poor mother and father — or your 
father will go to the bad. Please, please, little 
White Butterfly!” 

But the little white butterfly, evidently, had 
forgotten about the unhappy father and mother, 
and probably knew that it was much nicer in 
Heaven than in the little Jones cottage, and on 
it drifted. 

Sylvia was hot and tired, and with every 
instant the Jones baby’s soul was getting nearer 
Heaven. A wave of terror and dismay seized 
her. She beat her hands together and jumped 
up and down in the dusty road. 


16 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“Oh, oh, oh!” she cried. 

Just then there was a rustling in the bushes 
at the roadside and out darted a girlish figure 
in a tattered brown dress. Her black, unkempt 
hair hung loosely about her swarthy face and 
half-shaded her sad, dark eyes. 

The two, the sunbeam and the shadow, stood 
staring at each other in wonder for an instant.. 
Sylvia was the first to recover herself. 

“There it goes!” she cried. “Quick — the 
Jones baby’s soul — the white butterfly — 
please, please catch it for me!” 

There was a shy, light touch on her shoulder 
and a low, rich voice said in her ear: 

“ I’ll git him fer ye.” 

Instantly the graceful figure was away — 
skimming over the ground as lightly as a brown 
oak leaf wafted before a vagrant breeze. 
Quietly she bent over the white butterfly, poised 
on a mullen stalk, and deftly, gently her swarthy 
fingers closed over the little prisoner. 

She retraced her steps to the wondering 
Sylvia, her even white teeth gleaming against 
her cherry lips and berry-brown skin. 

“ Here ’tis. I got him for you,” she said, 


The White Butterfly 17 

holding out her interlaced fingers with their 
delicate captive. 

“Oh!” cried Sylvia, smiling through her 
tears and flinging her chubby arms about the 
slender figure, “ I love you, I love you! You’ve 
kept the Jones baby’s soul from going — ” 

The joyful cry was interrupted by a hoarse 
call from the thicket near the roadside. 

“ Come back ’ere, Leah, you minx.” 

Startled, Sylvia and the tall, dark girl turned 
suddenly to see, peering through the parted 
branches, a man’s heavy-jawed, swarthy face, 
with sullen eyes and wide, cruel nostrils. 

The girl shrugged her straight, boyish shoul¬ 
ders, and turned a haughty stare at him for 
an instant. Then she bent her dark head over 
Sylvia’s yellow curls. “ Here,” she whispered 
swiftly, carefully transferring the butterfly into 
Sylvia’s cupped hands, “ here’s yer little baby 
butterfly. Take it quick. I got to go er he’ll 
beat me.” 

She darted into the thicket like a swallow, 
but before the parted branches closed behind 
her soiled, tattered dress, she turned a sad, 
heart-hungry face toward the little figure in 


18 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

the road, then a brawny arm reached out and 
jerked her into the bushes. Sylvia stood in 
the road, bewildered and alone. She stared 
for a moment at the spot where the girl had 
disappeared, and then she remembered the 
Jones baby’s soul. 

It was a long, hot way to the Joneses’ place. 
Supposing the white butterfly, that fluttered so 
softly against her hands, should die before she 
got it safely home! What, then, would become 
of the Jones baby’s soul that had been so hap¬ 
pily on its way to heaven? 

Sylvia’s heart pumped hard. It was a long 
way back and she was tired and hot, and it 
was hard to hold her hands together with the 
soft little fluttering thing between. She started 
to open her fingers, but the thought of the 
sad mother, and the father who would go to 
the bad, stopped her. She began to run, for 
it was far, far for a little girl to go. 

An automobile coming slowly along the road 
behind her sounded a hoarse warning, but 
Sylvia did not get out of the way. Instead, 
she turned and ran back toward it, both hands 
holding the precious captive above her head. 


The White Butterfly 19 

“ Stop, stop, stop! ” she screamed, keeping to 
the center of the road, and dashing straight for 
the oncoming machine. 

The tall young man at the wheel stopped 
the car suddenly with a jerk, which brought 
forth a growl-like exclamation from the gray¬ 
haired old gentleman who sat beside him. 

“ Drat your plagued bouncing stops, Billy,” 
he roared. “ You’re pounding my sore foot to 
pieces. Get out of our way, young one,” turn¬ 
ing impatiently to Sylvia. 

She stamped a bare, dusty foot, and her rosy 
face grew ruddier. 

“ I won’t either get out of the way,” she 
cried, shaking her yellow curls. “ I’ve got 
something important to do, and I’ve got to 
hurry.” 

The young man at the wheel opened the 
door of the car and, leaning out, stared quiz¬ 
zically at the flushed, dusty Sylvia. “ Mercy on 
us!” he gasped in mock horror, “tell me 
quickly what this awfully important thing is — 
and what’s your name and where do you live? ” 

“ I’m Daddy Jim’s little girl, ’n he ’n I live 
in the Little Gray House — only the Poet calls 


20 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

me * Fairy Princess,’ ’ n sometimes the 1 Star 
Child/ but my real name’s Sylvia, 

“ Oh, won’t you please ride me as far as 
the Joneses? You see, the Jones baby died ’n 
I had to catch its soul before it got to Heaven 
so its father wouldn’t go to the bad — it’s here 
in my hands now — look!” She opened her 
sweaty little palms a wee crack. “ A girl with 
long, black hair caught it for me — ’n then a 
big black — ” 

“ Wait, wait,” cried the smiling young man, 
putting his hand to his head distractedly. “ I 
thought I knew a fairy Princess when I saw 
one, but I’m awfully sorry that I can’t under¬ 
stand the language.” 

Sylvia, distressed for the precious moments 
that were slipping by, explained breathlessly 
as best she could. 

The young man’s twinkly gray eyes grew 
grave. “ And they haven’t had a doctor, you 
say? ” 

She shook her head earnestly. 

“ Then climb in and we’ll do the very best 
we can,” he said quickly, helping her into the 
car, and starting the engine purring. 


The JVhite Butterfly 21 

It seemed scarcely a moment later that Sylvia 
told him to stop before the Joneses’ tumbled- 
down little brown shack that looked strangely 
sad and hopeless. And no wonder, for when 
they opened the sagging door, there sat the poor 
mother with haggard, tear-stained face, hold¬ 
ing in her arms the baby boy who lay very 
still and white. A man was kneeling beside 
her, his head buried in the baby’s dress, his 
massive shoulders shaking with sobs. 

Sylvia, followed by the tall young man, en¬ 
tered. She opened her fingers and the White 
Butterfly spread its gauzy wings and flew out 
into the room. 

“Look, look!” cried Sylvia, clapping her 
hands, and dancing about, “ we’ve brought it 
back to you — the baby’s soul! ” 

-• m 

The woman lifted her head and looked for 
a moment in dumb wonder, first at the child, 
then up at the tall young man, her pale lips 
quivering. 

But the young man was not looking at her, 
nor at the other man who had risen and stood 
with bowed head and clenched hands. He 
had stepped forward and was looking at the 


22 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

baby with keen, practiced eyes, feeling its cold 
little wrist with firm fingers, and bending his 
head to listen at the bluish little lips. 

Then he held out his arms and gently took 
the little form from the mother. 

“ Do what I say, quickly, and I’m sure we 
can save your baby,” he said in his deep, re¬ 
assuring voice. 

Mrs. Jones arose, staring questioningly at 
him. 

“ Be quickl” he said kindly, “I’m Billy 
Lynn — ” 

“ What — you’re Billy Lynn!” The wom¬ 
an’s face was ashen. 

“ Yes.” 

“ But you’re not a doctor? ” 

“Not yet, but I’m studying to be one — and 
I can save your child if you do as I tell you.” 

“Is — is your father Dr. Lynn — of — of 
Fairmont? ” The words came fearfully. 

“ He is — Dr. James Lynn — why? ” 

“Oh!” The woman put her hand to her 
heart as if a sharp pain had stabbed her there. 
“Oh, nothing — ” she said, faintly, steadying 
herself against a table. 


23 


The White Butterfly 

They worked feverishly — Doctor Billy, Syl¬ 
via, Mrs. Jones, and the baby’s father — heating 
water and milk, wrapping the baby in warm 
blankets; and in a very short time the warm 
color began to steal back into the tiny pinched 
face. 

“ Oh, goody! ” whispered Sylvia, as she stood 
beside the baby’s crib. “ He’s getting all pinky 
again — ’n — why, the butterfly’s gone — the 
baby’s soul is back. I’m going to go and tell 
the Ogre, Doctor Billy.” 

“ The Ogre? ” 

“ Yes, your father out ’n the auto.” 

Doctor Billy laughed heartily. “ All right, 
skip out and tell Dad I’ll be there shortly. 
The baby’s going to be napping peacefully as 
quick as you can say ‘Jack Robinson.’” 

The old gentleman was fidgeting in the 
automobile. “ Plague take this sore foot,” he 
growled as Sylvia delivered the message. “ I 
wish I could get out and help the boy. Here, 
take my medicine case in to him, he might want 
to use it.” 

She returned to the house, lugging the worn 
leather case. 


24 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ Poor old Dad,” said Doctor Billy, u he’s laid 
up just now with a sore foot, but I inveigled 
him to come with me for a little drive this 
afternoon. He’s like a caged lion when he 
can’t be gallivanting about with his old medi¬ 
cine case — he’s carried it almost every day 
for forty years. Looks it, doesn’t it? ” His 
deep, hearty laugh rang through the poor little 
rooms. 

“ Well, Princess,” he said, taking a last look 
at the baby, now sleeping quietly in its little 
crib, “ let’s be on our way rejoicing.” 

The man tried to express his thanks, inco¬ 
herently, with downcast eyes, and the woman 
took Doctor Billy’s warm hand gratefully be¬ 
tween her own cold ones, and then, completely 
overcome by his kind good-bye, she threw her 
arms about the old doctor’s medicine case, 
pressed it to her breast and covered its worn 
leather sides with kisses. 

“ Don’t thank me,” said Doctor Billy, " thank 
the Fairy Princess, here. I wouldn’t have 
known without her.” 

But out in the car, Sylvia said, with a wistful 
little question in her voice, “ It was really you, 


25 


The White Butterfly 

and not the White Butterfly at all, wasn’t it? ” 

“ Me! ” said Doctor Billy with ungrammatical 
surprise. “Me! Why, you know, Princess, I 
couldn’t have done a single, solitary thing if 
it hadn’t been for the White Butterfly. I’m 
mighty glad you let me in on the Fairy Secret. 
It’s a dandy! And both together I think we 
can do something for those poor folks, don’t 
you?” 

It was nearly supper time when Doctor Billy 
-stopped his car in front of the Little Gray 
House, and accompanied Sylvia to the door. 

“Good-bye, Daddy Jim’s little girl — or 
Fairy Princess — or whatever you are. Don’t 
forget me, will you?” 

“ Good-bye, Doctor Billy, course I won’t for¬ 
get you, ’n don’t you forget what you promised 
— that you’d ride out to the Stubbles real, real 
often,” she said, shaking a grimy forefinger at 
him. “ ’Cause I think I’m going to need you 
lots o’ times.” 

“ I hope you will,” said Doctor Billy, and with 
a far-away smile on his face he went back to 
the car where the old doctor was impatiently 
waiting. 


26 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ Funny little kiddie,” he said as they sped 
away, “ with the babble about poets and prin¬ 
cesses and baby souls and the little white stone 
marked 1 mother,’ and her wonderful Daddy 
Jim, and Minerva, the cat, and — ” 

“ Well, well, well, Billy, I should think 
you’d reached your second childhood, talking 
baby talk and muttering about fairies,” said his 
father gruffly. But Doctor Billy noticed — and 
his gray eyes twinkled — that just before they 
came to the bend in the road, the old doctor 
looked back and waved his handkerchief to a 
little blue-gingham figure that hung over the 
fence in front of the Little Gray House and 
flapped a white sunbonnet at the disappear¬ 
ing car. 


CHAPTER II 


Sylvia’s Birthday Wish 

ND so the little Jones baby is go¬ 
ing to get well?” asked Daddy 
Jim, stroking Sylvia’s curls. The 
two were sitting on the vine-shaded 
porch of the Little Gray House, in the clover- 
scented June twilight Sylvia had been re¬ 
counting the wonderful happenings of the 
day. 

“Yes, Daddy Jim, and Mrs. Jones was so 
glad she cried, and then she just kissed and 
squeezed Doctor Billy’s father’s medicine case 
real hard, and even Mr. Jones had tears in 
his eyes — I s’pose he’d been thinking he’d 
have to go to the bad when Doctor Billy came. 
Of course, he isn’t quite a doctor yet, but he 
said he was studying hard at a big school, and 
pretty soon he’d be one and make sick folks 
well and mend their broken bones. I asked 

him if he could fix broken hearts, too, ’cause I 

27 




28 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

heard the Poet say there was just one Great 
Doctor who could, and Doctor Billy said that 
was one thing he was goin’ to specialize in, 
if he could — but he said they were awful 
hard to fix sometimes, harder’n arms and legs. 

“ He likes to read books like yours, Daddy 
Jim, ’n he said you ’n I looked a lot alike 
when I showed him your picture ’n — ” 

“ Sylvia,” said Daddy Jim sternly, “ did he 
come in here? ” 

“ Just to the door, Daddy, dear, but he could 
see the bookcases from the porch, ’n he said — 
‘My! what a lots o’ books your daddy has.’ 
’N I told him we had lots more packed away. 
I told him how you read stories to me nights, 
’n Sundays, ’n that once you read one about a 
goddess named Minerva, ’n I liked it so well 
I named my kitten that. ’N I told him what 
good things you could make, Daddy Jim — 
waffles ’n pop corn ’n oyster stew ’n how you 
taught me everything at home, ’cause we’d 
moved around so much I couldn’t go to school, 
’n how awful much we missed mother dear, 
’n — ’n he just patted my hand, Daddy Jim, ’n 
his eyes got all shiny ’n he said he knew just 


29 


Sylvia s Birthday Wish 

how it was, ’cause he missed his mother, too. 
’N then he told me all about their great big 
dark house at Fairmont, with just the Ogre ’n 
Hannah ’n Tim — ” 

“ The Ogre! ” 

“ Yes, Daddy Jim, that’s his father. I call 
him that ’cause he roared at me ’n shook his 
fist when I made ’em stop. Dr. Billy said 
he wasn’t awful cross, but he’s got a sore foot 
’n that makes him worse.” 

The two sat quietly for a few minutes. 
Daddy Jim’s eyes followed the road that wound 
past the house, up over the brow of the hill 
and away, like a gray ribbon in the dusky twi¬ 
light. Then he looked down at the golden 
head nestled against his arm. 

“ Sylvia,” he said, and she raised her eyes 
in surprise at the stern tones. Daddy Jim’s 
voice was usually as gentle as a mother’s. 
“ Sylvia, there are two things Daddy wants 
you to remember — two things that are very 
important. Never bring a stranger into our 
house or tell anything about our personal 
affairs.” 

“ Why not, Daddy Jim? Is there something 


30 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

about us that we don’t want anyone to know? ” 
she asked. 

“ There is something we don’t talk about. 
But you must love and trust Daddy Jim and 
not ask questions. Will you do that? ” 

Sylvia nodded and then she took his hand 
in hers and squeezed it tight. 

“And the second thing is this, dear: Daddy 
doesn’t want you to have anything to do with 
the dark girl — Leah — the one who helped 
you catch the butterfly. She belongs to the 
Warren tribe and they are trash — just trash. 
They steal and lie — and the Stubbles will 
never be a decent place to live in while they 
remain. I’ve been trying to get rid of them 
ever since Petey Swanson appointed me con¬ 
stable, and I shall keep trying until they are 
wiped out, root and branch.” 

“ But, Daddy Jim,” protested Sylvia, twin¬ 
ing her arm about his neck, “ she must be 
good ’cause she helped to save the baby’s soul, 
and she looked so lonesome, an’ I guess she 
was scared, ’cause she said the man would 
beat her.” 

“ No dear,” said Daddy Jim, gravely. 11 The 


31 


Sylvia s Birthday Wish 

daughter of such people can’t be a fit friend for 
you, no matter how much you may have liked 
her. Don’t you see that, little girl? You must 
trust Daddy’s judgment.” 

Sylvia bowed her head in submission. Her 
father watched her thoughtfully, as she clasped 
her hands about her knees and raised her face 
to the summer stars that were beginning to 
blink in the sunset sky, watched her hungrily 
until the golden head was blurred by the tender 
mist in his eyes. 

Sylvia broke the silence with a sing-song 
little incantation: 

“Star light, star bright, 

First star Iv’e seen to-night! 

I wish I may, I wish I might, 

Have the wish I wish to-night!” 

“And what is the wish of the Fairy Prin¬ 
cess?” asked Daddy Jim, shaking off the quiet 
mood that had been stealing over him. 

“ Oh — ” said Sylvia, raising a beaming face, 
“ I wish — I wish I knew the answers to all 
the ‘ whys ’ in the whole wide world!” 

“Ho, ho!” laughed Daddy Jim, throwing 
back his head and laughing so heartily that 


32 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

Minerva, who had been dozing in the cush¬ 
ioned porch chair, jumped lightly down and 
tapped his knee gently with a playful paw. 
“ What a very, very queer and foolish wish 
for a Fairy Princess! Why, I thought you’d 
wish for a pink satin dress or a diamond neck¬ 
lace— or a coach and four, or a gold castle 
with silver windows or — ” 

Sylvia clapped her hands delightedly. “ Oh, 
Daddy, Daddy Jim, whatever ’n the world 
made you think I wanted those things. I’d 
rather live in the Little Gray House than in 
a gold castle, ’n I’d rather wear my blue ging¬ 
ham dress ’n ride on Bump’s back, than wear 
pink satin ’n ride in a coach. What made 
you say my wish was foolish?” 

“ Because, dear,” said Daddy Jim, smoothing 
her curls, and growing grave again, “ if your 
poor little head knew the answers to all the 
‘ whys ’ in the whole wide world there wouldn’t 
be any room left for birds and bees and fairies 
and flowers and poets and white butterflies. 
And your poor heart — why, it would be so 
cracked and splintered and broken that not 
even your friend, Doctor Billy, with all his spe- 


33 


Sylvias Birthday Wish 

cializing, could fix it again — for he told you 
the truth when he said that broken hearts were 
much harder to mend than arms and legs.” 

“Well, then, Daddy Jim, couldn’t I change 
my wish — ’n make one about my birthday — 
that’s coming next week? ” asked Sylvia, throw¬ 
ing her arms about him. 

“ Of course you could,” said Daddy Jim, 
“ and I’d not be a bit surprised if it would 
come true, since you don’t care about gold 
castles and diamond necklaces and things of 
that sort.” 

“Oh, goody! Then this is what I wish,” 
said Sylvia, shutting her eyes tightly and 
screwing up her face until the dimples in her 
cheeks showed. “ I wish you ’n I could go on 
a journey, Daddy — you ’n I together.” 

A swift shadow fell across Daddy Jim’s 
face and the line of his mouth tightened, but 
Sylvia’s eyes were closed and she did not see 
the fleeting expression. 

“ Go away — on the train, you mean? Away 
from the Stubbles?” A queer note crept into 
his voice, and he waited anxiously for her 
reply. 



34 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ Oh, no,” explained Sylvia, “ not away on 
the train — just go ’round the Stubbles in — 
what d’ you s’pose, daddy — in a Little Red 
Wagon!” She opened her eyes suddenly and 
waited expectantly for the answer. 

Daddy Jim laughed in a relieved way. “ In 
a little red wagon! ” he exclaimed. 

“Yes! Couldn’t we paint the little old 
spring wagon ’n put a white cover over the 
top — you know — with Bumps hitched to it?” 
Sylvia caught her father’s arm excitedly. “ ’N 
couldn’t I wear a red sash around my waist ’n 
a black velvet jacket — ’n — ’n earrings — like 
a gypsy?” 

“Sylvia, you never saw a gypsy, did you?” 

■“ No, Daddy Jim, but the Poet told me all 
about ’em, ’n about their camp fires ’n their 
songs ’n everything, ’n the wagons with white 
tops they go ’round in.” 

“Well,” said Daddy Jim, “I shouldn’t be 
surprised if we could manage it some way.” 

“ And then,” said Sylvia, settling herself 
again at Daddy Jim’s side, “ there’s another 
part to my wish, ’n it’s this: I wish we could 
drive around ’n get the Poet ’n Petey Swanson 



35 


Sylvia s Birthday Wish 

’n the Tweenies ’n the Lonely Lady — ’n take 
’em all in the red wagon ’n drive over across 
the creek to the grove ’n have our birthday sup¬ 
per in the woods. ’N— wait, Daddy, there’s 
just one more part to my wish — it’s to have 
Doctor Billy at my party! ” 

“ Doctor Billy ! — and you’ve only known 
him to-day? ” 

“ Yes, Daddy Jim — ’cause it was beautiful 
of him to make the Jones baby well — ’n he’s 
so lonesome ’thout his mother. And he’s very 
much like a — a prisoner. He’s sort of won¬ 
derful to me. I’d just love it if I could have 
him! Can’t I — on my birthday?” 

Daddy Jim thought for a few moments. 
“ Well,” he finally said, “ if that’s your wish, 
dear — but I’m afraid your guests may not 
enjoy it as much as you will. You know the 
Poet, even though he is a child at heart, is an 
old, old man — much older than Daddy Jim. 
And the Lonely Lady isn’t used to jolting 
around in a red wagon — and Doctor Billy, why, 
dearie, he’s probably forgotten all about you 
and your little white butterfly by this time.” 

“ Oh, no, he hasn’t, Daddy. I’m sure he 


36 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

hasn’t, ’cause he promised to come again. I’ll 
write to him to-morrow. May I, ’n tell him to 
come in his auto? To-morrow we’ll paint the 
wagon, can’t we, Daddy Jim, ’n tell the Lonely 
Lady — see, there’s one lonely little twinkly 
light up in her windows now. I feel so sorry 
for her. I wonder why she lives up there all 
by herself. It’s dreadful to be a Lonely Person, 
isn’t it?” 

Daddy Jim slowly rose from the steps and 
drew Sylvia up with him. “ Yes,” he said 
slowly, as he gazed at the one light gleaming 
from the great house on the hill, “ it is dread¬ 
ful to be — a Lonely Person.” 

“ Maybe she’s an Enchanted Princess, ’n the 
Prince ’ll come some day ’n rescue her,” said 
Sylvia, softly. “ P’r’aps there’s a dragon hiding 
around somewhere, ’n she’s afraid of him ’n 
that’s why she never comes down to see us or 
anyone.” 

“ I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Daddy Jim. 
“ There are a good many dragons around that 
nobody knows about.” 

“ Oh, Daddy Jim, did you ever see one? ” 

“ I’ve felt one,” he said with a sigh. 


37 


Sylvia s Birthday Wish 

“ Felt his fiery breath? ” 

“Yes — and his sharp claws!” 

Pleasant, fearful chills shot up and down 
Sylvia’s spine. “ Do you think I’ll ever get 
to see him, Daddy dear?” 

“ I hope not, little daughter,” said Daddy 
Jim fervently. “ I hope you never may. I 
am going to fight him, and keep him away.” 

The next morning Daddy Jim and Sylvia 
were up with the sun and the painting of the 
little old spring wagon was begun. There were 
busy days, before the wonderful birthday, and 
Sylvia bustled about from one pleasant task to 
another. There was the note to be written to 
Doctor Billy and carried out importantly to the 
mailman when he came jogging along in the 
little mail wagon. 

There were the Tweenies to be called upon 
and their mother to be told of the wonderful 
treat in store for the whole eight of them. It 
would never do to impart the news to the 
Tweenies themselves until the last minute, for 
the bulging little house down by the creek 
couldn’t possibly hold them if they were one 
speck fuller of life and joy. It was always a 


38 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

holiday at the Tweenies. Nobody ever seemed 
to work, although goodness knows there was 
work aplenty to be done. Mamma Tweenie 
was fat and jolly, and could always be found 
bustling about the little house with a Tweenie 
in her arms and one or two clinging to her 
skirts. Papa Tweenie was jolly and fat, and 
could usually be found sitting on the shady side 
of the bulging little house, his chair tipped 
back against the clapboards, a cob pipe in his 
mouth. And what stories he could tell! Fas¬ 
cinating stories! Sylvia in front of him, with 
the youngest Tweenie in her arms, the Poet 
seated on one side, and Sam, the oldest Twee¬ 
nie, on the other, had spent many happy hours 
listening to his tales. 

“ He’s no good on earth!” said Mr. Clark, 
his next-door neighbor, who was so industrious 
he worked even on Sundays. But it was the 
opinion of Sylvia and the Poet that he was 
much more worth-while than Mr. Clark, who 
couldn’t even let his family take time to go 
to church on Sunday, and who thought that the 
most important thing in life was to add and 
subtract rows and columns of figures. 


39 


Sylvia s Birthday Wish 

Then there was Petey Swanson to be invited. 
Petey’s red face lighted up when Sylvia danced 
into the little store to tell him about the party. 
Some people said he was the richest man in all 
the Stubbles, though he never would admit it, 
and it was known from one end of the cross¬ 
roads to the other, that the only two people in 
whom he had any interest were Sylvia and 
Loony Luke. But for these two he had con¬ 
ceived a strange fondness. 

“ Oh, ho, you bane gut little girl to ask old 
Petey to de party, but Petey he can’t go — he 
gotta shtay py de shtore und vait on beoples,” 
he said, stroking Sylvia’s golden curls. And 
no amount of coaxing on her part could change 
his decision. “No, no,” he said, “but here — 
I gif you big sticks of candy for your party,” 
and he pressed a bag of the luscious, gaily 
striped sticks into her hands. 

There was no use telling the Poet about the 
party until it was time for it to happen, because 
Sylvia had found from experience that he some¬ 
times forgot — he was so busy writing his 
book of poems and talking with the trees and 
flowers. And she knew she could find him 


40 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

when the time came, for no one knew his 
haunts about the Stubbles better than she. 

Last of all — Sylvia was saving it for the 
last because there was a special glamour about 
the task — there was the trip up the hill to 
the home of the Enchanted Princess, to tell her 
in a very timid little voice about the party, and 
to ask her if she would ride in the little red 
wagon out to the grove for the birthday 
supper. 

The Lonely Lady received the invitation en¬ 
thusiastically and before Sylvia realized it she 
found herself confiding about the birthday 
wishes and telling all the plans for the party. 

“ I think it will be a beautiful party, dear,” 
said the Lonely Lady, slipping a gentle arm 
about the little caller. “ But I have an idea. 
How would you like to bring your friends here 
for the supper, instead of having it in the 
grove. We can have it on the lawn near the 
little summer house, and I will have Mrs. 
Jones come and help me. I should love to do 
it, for you know I’m all by myself and some¬ 
times I get terribly lonesome. I’ve watched 
you and your father, down in your garden.” 


Sylvia s Birthday Wish 41 

“Oh!” gasped Sylvia. “He has seen you, 
too, up here in the castle yard! ” 

“Yes, why not?” asked the Lonely Lady. 

“Why, I’d rather do that than almost any¬ 
thing else in the world!” said Sylvia, in an 
almost reverent whisper, as she gazed about 
the beautiful gardens in open admiration. 
“ Now I know you’re a Princess, you’re so 
kind.” Her little brown hand stole over the 
Lonely Lady’s slim white fingers and patted 
them gently. “Are you — are you very much 
scared of the Dragon?” she asked softly. 

The Lonely Lady looked at her, puzzled for 
a moment. Then she laughed, and then her 
eyes grew very grave. “ Yes,” she said in a 
voice which Sylvia thought she was trying to 
keep brave, “ sometimes, when I’m unusually 
lonesome, I feel pretty much afraid of him, 
but when I have nice cheerful callers with 
golden curls, who bring invitations to beau¬ 
tiful birthday parties, I don’t seem to mind so 
much.” 

“Does he — come out? Have you seen 
him?” asked Sylvia, casting a watchful glance 
toward the shrubbery at the edge of the lawn. 


42 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ Well,” said the Lonely Lady, “ sometimes 
I think I see his shadow.” 

“And Daddy Jim feels his fiery breath!” 
exclaimed Sylvia comfortingly. “ Oh, dear, 
never mind, p’r’aps the Prince will come some 
day and slay the Dragon.” 

The Lonely Lady shook her head sadly. 
“ I’m afraid the Prince could never slay this 
Dragon,” she said in a voice that was a wee 
bit trembly. 

And so it was arranged that the birthday 
supper was to be in the Lonely Lady’s garden, 
but that was to be a surprise even to Daddy 
Jim. 

To Sylvia the time crawled by, but finally 
the birthday dawned, as bright as ever any 
mortal could wish. She was awakened by a 
sunbeam streaming straight across her eyelids 
and by Daddy Jim saying, “Wake up, little 
birthday girl,” and his deep, rich bass singing: 

“ And day’s at the morn, 

Morning’s at seven; 

The hillside’s dew pearl’d; 

The lark’s on the wing; 


43 


Sylvia s Birthday Wish 

The snail's on the thorn; 

God's in His heaven — 

All's right with the world!" 

When the mailman drove by he left a big 
square envelope addressed in a round black 
hand, to — 

“ Miss Sylvia, 

Fairy Princess of the Stubbles.” 

“Oh! oh! oh! it’s from Doctor Billy!” cried 
Sylvia, jumping up and down and clasping it 
to her breast. 

With fingers trembling with excitement she 
tore it open and slowly read: 

“ My dear Princess Sylvia: 

“ You see I don’t know your last name, but 
I’m sure this will reach you. 

“ Yes, indeed, I’ll come to your birthday party 
— with rings on my fingers and bells on my toes. 
Wild horses couldn’t hold me back. I haven’t 
ridden in a Little Red Wagon for years, but I 
can’t think of anything I’d rather do, and so 
good-bye until the big day. 

“ Faithfully yours, 

“ 4 Doctor Billy’.” 


44 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

The party was a huge success and everybody 
had a beautiful time. Daddy Jim and Sylvia 
had driven Bumps and the red wagon around 
and collected the guests. They had taken in the 
Poet and Jester down by the clump of sun¬ 
flowers; the Lonely Lady hadn’t minded the 
jolting one bit; the Tweenies had been on their 
birthday behavior, and Doctor Billy had kept 
the whole party in an uproar of laughter with 
his gay spirits. 

The supper in the Lonely Lady’s garden was 
a glorious surprise to everybody. She had 
turned over the porches and lawn to the guests 
and everybody made himself at home. The 
Poet had wandered off among the flowers; 
Doctor Billy had initiated the older Tweenies 
into the intricacies of mumblety-peg, and then 
had returned to the veranda to chat with Daddy 
Jim and the Lonely Lady about books and 
pictures and colleges and music and hospitals; 
and Sylvia, in the gay red sash and black velvet 
bolero which Daddy Jim had found in the 
little green trunk in the attic, had flitted like 
a bright moth from one group to another. 

The supper had been a jolly meal out on 


Sylvia s Birthday Wish 


45 


the lawn, with a pretty little table set with a 
white cloth and baskets of flowers and plates 
of sandwiches and shell-like cups of foamy 
brown chocolate, and a big birthday cake with 
white frosting and pink candles which the 
Lonely Lady lighted — and pink ice cream! 
Doctor Billy had had a whole freezerful sent 
from Fairmont. “ Because,” he explained, “ I 
remember one birthday of mine when I didn’t 
have pink ice cream, and I count that a lost 
year. And when I get rich,” he said, “ I’m go¬ 
ing to establish a Fund for the Purchase of 
Pink Ice Cream for Birthday Parties, because, 
to my notion, it’s the only thing that will recon¬ 
cile one to the necessity of having birthdays.” 

Even Jester, and Minerva, whom Sylvia had 
decorated with a big bow, had a joyful time 
rolling in the grass. The only person who did 
not seem to be perfectly radiant was Mrs. Jones, 
who came to help the Lonely Lady prepare the 
refreshments and carry them out to the sum¬ 
mer house. Sylvia had come upon her, wiping 
her eyes with her apron as she stood behind 
a lilac bush, staring through the branches at 
the back of Doctor Billy’s head as he laughed 


46 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

and talked with Daddy Jim. And when Sylvia 
had asked her what the matter was, Mrs. Jones 
had started guiltily, and said, “ Oh, I guess 
those Tweenies get on my nerves — there’re 
so many of them and they’re so careless with 
those fine china cups.” 

Finally the party was over. They had all 
bade the Lonely Lady good night and Daddy 
Jim had driven the Poet and the sleepy Twee¬ 
nies home in the moonlight. The Little Red 
Wagon deposited its final load — Daddy Jim, 
Doctor Billy and Sylvia — at the gate where 
Doctor Billy had left his big green automobile 
standing, waiting to drive him back to Fairmont. 

“ Oh, Daddy and Doctor Billy, wasn’t it the 
most beautiful birthday you ever saw!” cried 
Sylvia, dancing about in the moonlight. “ And 
didn’t we have the best time! But now it’s all 
over,” she added wistfully. 

“ Great Scott! ” exclaimed Doctor Billy, feel¬ 
ing hastily in all his pockets. “ Here” — pro¬ 
ducing a little white box and taking out some¬ 
thing that glittered in the moonlight. “ Here’s a 
little dodad for the Fairy Princess, I’ve been 
saving as a last surprise — and then I nearly 


47 


Sylvias Birthday Wish 

forgot it. You see,” he said, winking a twinkly 
gray eye at Daddy Jim, as he slipped the 
slender gold chain over Sylvia’s bright head, 
“ I’m a terribly conceited chap and I felt so 
elated at being successful with our first patient 
— I s’pose you’ve heard about the Jones baby, 
Mr. Gray — that I wanted to erect a sort of 
memorial to myself and my little partner here. 
And I happened to see this pearl butterfly 
dingle-dangle, and, thinks I — why, that’s just 
the thing. I’ll buy it. And then Dad — the 
Ogre, you know — said how under the sun 
could she wear it unless she had a chain to 
wear it on. So he bought the chain. I hope 
the Princess Sylvia will be good enough to 
wear it for me.” 

“ Oh, ’course I’ll wear it, dear, dear Doctor 
Billy,” cried Sylvia, delightedly, holding in her 
round little chin to see the butterfly ornament, 
“ and I’ll love you forever ’n ever,” throwing 
her arms about him, and planting a moist 
childish kiss on the bridge of his nose. 

“ All right,” laughed Doctor Billy, disentang¬ 
ling himself from the red scarf. 

“ Good night, Mr. Gray.” 


48 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ Good night,” replied Daddy Jim, extend¬ 
ing his hand. “ We’ve thoroughly enjoyed your 
company at our party—Doctor Billy. I hope 
you will come again — often.” 

“Why, Daddy Jim,” said Sylvia, wonder- 
ingly, as the hum of the big car grew fainter 
and fainter. “ I thought you didn’t want 
strangers to come to our house.” 

Daddy Jim smiled and stroked her hair. 
“ Doctor Billy,” he replied gravely, “ is a 
prince! ” 

“A Prince!” whispered Sylvia to herself. 
“ It’s always a Prince that slays the Dragon,” 
raising her eyes to the silver silhouette of the 
white house on the hill. “ P’raps — ” but she 
didn’t finish the thought aloud. 

That night Sylvia fell asleep with her fingers 
tightly clasped around the little pearl butterfly 
at her throat. And as Doctor Billy drove slowly 
back to Fairmont in the moonlight, he kept 
wrinkling up his nose and smiling a funny little 
smile all to himself. 


CHAPTER III 


The Poet’s Secret 

HE summer days passed slowly. 
The Stubbles, barren at its best, but 
slightly camouflaged by the fra¬ 
grance and blossom of June, 
stretched drab and dusty before the merciless 
sun of July and August. The morning-glory 
vines which Sylvia had tended so faithfully in 
the spring and early summer, hung wilted on 
their strings, and the sparse wild-rose bushes 
across the road appeared to quiver in the 
flic! ^ring heat waves. 

The only refreshing spot in all of the Stub¬ 
bles was the Lonely Lady’s house on the hill 
with its broad, screened porches and its vel¬ 
vety green lawns. There Sylvia and Daddy 
Jim were apt to be found in the cool of the 
evening, Daddy Jim and the Lonely Lady 
chatting in a neighborly way and Sylvia sitting 

on the cushions at their feet, listening to their 

49 



SO Sylvia of the Stubbles 

talk, or to the tinkle of the phonograph. Many 
evenings Doctor Billy drove out from Fairmont 
and joined the little party, and then the talk 
was more sprightly, and the music they played 
was gayer, and his cheery laugh rang out so 
heartily, that the Poet, wandering by with 
Jester, smiled to himself and sang softly: 

“ Oh, stars are bright 
When hearts are light; 

No shadows stretch above. 

A silver dream in each moonbeam 
A dream of youth and love.” 

“ I don’t think the Lonely Lady’s quite so 
lonely as she used to be, do you, Daddy? ” Syl¬ 
via said to her father as they walked down the 
hill to the Little Gray House one evening after 
the merry party broke up. Daddy Jim felt the 
color rising to his cheeks. He did not answer 
at once. 

“ Anyway, she laughs more. P’raps the 
Dragon’s gone — she said there was a Dragon, 
Daddy. Pm going to ask her if it’s gone!” 
exclaimed Sylvia. 

“No, dear,” replied Daddy Jim, kindly, 


The Poet's Secret 


51 


you must not pry into people’s affairs. We 
would not like them to pry into ours,” he said, 
pleasantly, and when she looked up at him 
questioningly, he said quickly, “ You know 
you’re getting to be a grown-up girl now, and 
they might not understand. 

“ Daddy has always let you go on 1 pretend¬ 
ing ’ about fairies and princesses and dragons, 
but you must remember that some people 
haven’t any patience with things of that sort.” 

“ Doctor Billy has — he talks about princes 
and princesses and ogres.” 

“ Yes, Doctor Billy is amused.” 

“ Amused? ” she asked. 

“ Understands, perhaps.” 

“ So does the Poet,” added Sylvia. 

“Yes — the Poet, dear, lives in a world of 
Pretend. But now that you’re going to school 
this fall, where you’ll be more or less with 
other children, you’ll have to remember.” 

“ I will, Daddy Jim, I’ll remember spick’n 
span — and won’t pretend out loud to a single 
person except you ’n Doctor Billy ’n the Lonely 
Lady ’n the Poet. 

Doctor Billy, driving through the Stubbles 


52 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

one blue and gold afternoon, stopped his car in 
front of the Little Gray House. 

Sylvia’s face brightened. 

“ Oh, it isn’t a patient this time — it’s the 
miser! ” 

“Who?” questioned Sylvia with a puzzled 
expression. 

“The Miser — old Petey Swanson. I want 
you to get him to give some money to the church 
for the new hospital.” 

Sylvia had heard all about the new hos¬ 
pital before. It was the dream of old Dr. 
Lynn’s life, and Doctor Billy was quite as much 
interested in the project. The old doctor had 
given almost everything he possessed, but still 
the church did not have money enough, while 
old Petey Swanson, rich enough to build two or 
three hospitals, wouldn’t help at all. 

“ Well, little Partner, what do you think 
about it?” asked Doctor Billy, sitting down on 
the step and helping himself to a gingersnap. 
“ It’s like tearing up a tree by the roots to part 
that old codger from his money, I know. But 
if anyone can do it you can.” 

“ He gives me candy, sometimes — but he 


The Poet's Secret 


S3 


never gave any one any money,” said Sylvia 
thoughtfully. “ But I’ll ask him, anyway. 
Maybe he will. Oh, dear, Doctor Billy, I wish 
I had piles and piles of money, I’d—” 

“ Well,” said Doctor Billy with a mournful 
shake of his head, “ it’s a pity you haven’t 
Petey Swanson’s cash, but if you can pry some 
of his dollars loose, that’ll be the next best 
thing— so I’ll leave it to you. I must hustle 
to get home in time for supper. I’ll be out in 
a couple of days to see what luck you’ve had. 
Good-bye, little Partner, and here’s hoping 
for the b^st!” 

Doctor Billy waved from the auto, and 
Sylvia, dismissing the Tweenies with a pre¬ 
occupied air, hastened to tie on her sunbonnet 
and put the bridle on Bumps. 

She mounted her saddleless charger and 
started for Petey Swanson’s store. Perhaps 
she would find the Poet somewhere along the 
road and he could help her. 

Sure enough, there he lay under a tree, his 
old silk hat resting carefully over his heart, 
a white flower in his button-hole. He sprang 
up when Sylvia called to him, and came 


54 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

eagerly to meet her, his dreamy brown eyes 
unusually bright with a new secret he had 
discovered. 

Sylvia didn’t want to hear about the Secret 
just now. She wanted to talk about hospitals; 
but the Poet was too absorbed in his discovery 
to be at all interested. However, he went with 
her to Petey Swanson’s, walking beside Bumps 
and singing softly: 

“A little Bird sat on a wild-rose tree 

And whispered a wonderful Secret to me! 

But I must not tell 

Of the Fairy Spell, 

Till the Gates of Heaven are opened to me A 

Usually Sylvia was very fond of the Poet’s 
songs, but she was too much worried now over 
the desertion of her ally to listen to his poetry. 
Unfortunately, this was one of the Poet’s per¬ 
verse days. When they came to Petey Swan¬ 
son’s he refused absolutely to enter the store. 
He must go and tell the King’s henchmen — 
who had been turned into sunflowers along the 
road a few rods beyond — about the wonder- 


The Poet's Secret 55 

ful secret, and he went on down the dusty road 
singing in his high sweet voice: 

“But I must not tell 

Of the Fairy Spell, 

Till the Gates of Heaven are opened to me.” 

So Sylvia went alone into the little shop. 
She was almost sure what the outcome would 
be before she even began. She pleaded as 
bravely and eloquently as she knew how, for 
the poor sick babies and their fathers and 
mothers, but the old Swede only laughed. 
“You bane vOn funny leetle girl! Here! I 
gif you beeg stick candy — ya-as?” 

But Sylvia shook her head, swallowing hard 
to keep from sobbing. She had failed miser¬ 
ably in the errand Doctor Billy had entrusted to 
her. He would be so disappointed — and 
there were all the sick folks and folks with 
broken bones and folks with broken hearts 
who couldn’t be treated half so well if there 
were no hospital. 

Her chin quivered as she pulled her sun- 
bonnet low over her eyes and went back to 
Bumps, waiting patiently at the end of the 



56 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

store porch, and climbed onto his back from 
a big dry-goods box. 

Bumps had been dozing, dreaming, no doubt, 
of the days when he was young and frisky. 
Perhaps that was why the shrill whistle of the 
through express startled him so. He whirled 
about and dashed blindly towards the tracks 
from the store, unheeding his little mistress’ 
alarmed cry. On thundered the express with 
lightning speed. Sylvia screamed and buried 
her head on the neck of the frightened Bumps. 
Petey Swanson ran to the door, uttering a 
hoarse cry and wringing his hard old hands 
in distress. The workmen at the elevator 
across the tracks held their breath, powerless 
to help, and waited for the inevitable crash 
that would mean the last of the little golden¬ 
haired girl they all loved so well. 

Then, out from among the sunflowers, dashed 
a queer figure in a tall silk hat. He sprang 
upon the track in front of the plunging horse 
and forced him backward. 

The grinding brakes brought the great black 
engine to a standstill — but not quite soon 


The Poet's Secret 


57 


enough.When the cloud of dust 

and cinders cleared away, Sylvia and Bumps 
were safe; but they found the Poet, the white 
flower still in his buttonhole, lying limp and 
still among the sunflowers. 

They carried him into the store and some¬ 
body who had seen Doctor Billy driving through 
the Stubbles a short time before, telephoned to 
Paxton, on the road to Fairmont, to intercept 
him, while Petey Swanson, with tears running 
down his red cheeks, explained to the gathering 
crowd of passengers from the express: “ Poor 
Luke — poor, poor boy! He bane queer — too 
much books. But he bane a Poet — and we 
luffed him! ” 

Doctor Billy came, before long, very white¬ 
faced and queer about the eyes. He had got 
the message wrong, somehow. He thought it 
was Sylvia who was hurt. But there was very 
little that Doctor Billy could do. 

Old Petey Swanson sat with the poor un¬ 
conscious head in his lap. Sylvia stood near, 
white-faced and wide-eyed. Doctor Billy tried 
to take her away, but the Poet was whispering 


58 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

something faintly and they bent close to hear: 

“ But I must not tell 

Of the Fairy Spell, 

Till — the Gates — of Heaven —’’ 

He opened his great brown eyes and smiling 
faintly, held out his hand to Sylvia. “ The 
Gates — are — opened,” he murmured dream¬ 
ily. “ I may tell — my Secret.” The words 
came very softly and haltingly from the pale 
lips. “You are — a Star Child — sent down 
from Heaven — to make the way — bright.” 
The brown eyes closed, and the Poet’s voice 
was still. 

Doctor Billy took the sobbing Sylvia and 
went out and sat on the edge of the porch. 
After a little, when he had quieted her, he said: 

“ Poor Luke. If we had only had the hos¬ 
pital, with everything to work with, we might 
have saved him. But maybe it’s better this 
way. The Gates must have opened very wide 
indeed for him —” 

“Vat you say?” came a gulpy voice behind 
them. Old Petey Swanson laid a trembling 
hand on Doctor Billy’s shoulder. “ Vat you say 



The Poet’s Secret 59 

about — hospital? I gif you — how much you 
say — all you vant — to build him!” 

Old Petey Swanson blew his nose loudly and 
before they could comprehend what he was 
saying, he had hobbled away. 

Doctor Billy nodded and swallowed hard and 
then he looked long and intently toward the 
sunset — so long that his eyes were all red and 
watery. 

Around the corner of the house came the 
Poet’s Jester. There was a look of bewilder¬ 
ment in his wide gentle eyes and he sniffed 
the air thoughtfully. Sylvia threw her arms 
about his neck and buried her face in his 
shaggy mane. “Oh, Jester, Jester! The Poet 
has gone away!” 

The creature licked her hand sympathetically 
and then with a wag of his tail, trotted off to¬ 
ward the sunflowers, sniffing a little hollow in 
the pressed-down grass, where the Poet had so 
lately lain. 

A few days later Doctor Billy and Sylvia 
found the dog lying upon the Poet’s grave partly 
hidden among the sumacs. 

They could not coax him away, nor induce 


60 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

him to eat the food they brought. And one 
evening they could not waken him. 

“ P’raps,” said Sylvia, “ he heard the Poet’s 
song from inside the Gates.” 

“ Perhaps he did,” said Doctor Billy thought¬ 
fully. 

The smoky, hazy, late September days 
brought with them the time for Doctor Billy’s 
departure for medical college. It was his last 
year and then would come his period of serv¬ 
ing as an interne at the new hospital, the build¬ 
ing of which Petey Swanson’s unexpected 
generosity had given such an impetus. 

“ Remember, Sylvia Sunshine,” Doctor Billy 
had said at parting, as he noticed a fleeting little 
quiver of her lips, “ that while you’re cram¬ 
ming your curly head full of facts and figures, 
I’ll be sawing bones and mending broken arms 
and legs, and —” 

“ And hearts,” added Sylvia wistfully. 

“Yes, siree — hearts, of course. And 
although I’ll be mighty busy, I won’t be too 
busy to write to you once a week, and I want 
you to make me a promise, on your honor as 
a lady. Will you?” 


The Poet's Secret 61 

Sylvia nodded. “ I’ll promise you most any' 
thing I can, Doctor Billy,” she replied. 

“ Well, I’m going to ask you to keep me 
posted about all my friends and ‘ patients ’ here 
at the Stubbles. You see, I’ll be anxious to 
know everything that’s happening to you and 
Daddy Jim and the Lonely Lady and Petey 
Swanson and the Joneses and the Tweenies, and 
really you’re the only one I can depend upon 
to keep me informed. Will you do it? ” 

“ Oh, goody! Ofc course I will. I’ll write 
you a letter every single week, Doctor Billy — 
with ink, on the pink paper I’ve been saving 
until I had somebody to write to! ” 

“ Fine! ” cried Doctor Billy. “ Pink’s my fa¬ 
vorite color.” 

So he had gone, and Sylvia had swallowed 
a stubborn lump in her throat as she thought 
how lonely the days ahead would be. 

And they were lonely, the days without his 
cheery laugh and jolly stories — but Sylvia 
and Doctor Billy kept their promise to write, 
and the letters — in dainty pink envelopes and 
big square white ones — traveled back and 
forth voluminously. 


CHAPTER IV 


Sylvia’s Great Adventure 



YLVIA started to the Stubbles 
school, that fall, and thanks to 
Daddy Jim’s careful teaching the 
lessons, with their figures and maps 
and stories and spelling, all fell into line and ad¬ 
justed themselves very easily. Of course it was 
strange at first—quite different from sitting 
across the table from Daddy Jim, listening to 
his deep voice as he read the beautifully bound 
books from the old, carved mahogany book 
cases, and explained the pictures of foreign 
cities and peoples, and told Sylvia tales of 
great men and historic events. Sometimes they 
played a game which Daddy Jim called “ My 
Ship’s Come In.” Sometimes the ship came 
in from India, sometimes from Italy, sometimes 
from South America, or other far countries, 
and they would name the contents of the won¬ 
derful cargoes that those lands sent. As a mat- 

62 




Sylvia s Great Adventure 63 

ter of fact, all of Sylvia’s schooling had been 
so like a delightful game, with Daddy Jim as 
her playfellow, that she had scarcely realized 
she had been gathering up crumbs of knowl¬ 
edge, and when she started to the Stubbles 
school she found that she was far ahead of the 
other children. 

She was careful to remember what Daddy 
Jim told her — that other people might not 
understand about her dream-children — the 
flowers and trees, and bees and butterflies — but 
she kept her delightful pretendings in her own 
heart, and they comforted her many times 
when she grew a wee bit lonely for the old, 
care-free times when she had wandered through 
the stubbled fields or down by the creek with 
Daddy Jim or the Poet, and occasionally Doctor 
Billy, to talk to. 

There was one thing, though, that bothered 
Sylvia. Leah Warren, the dark girl who h<id 
helped her catch the butterfly, and with whom 
Daddy Jim had forbidden her to have any¬ 
thing to do, attended the Stubbles school, and 
though she was five or six years older than 
Sylvia she was not nearly so advanced in her 



64 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

studies. She was the biggest girl in her class, 
indeed, quite as big as the teacher herself, but 
to her untrained mind the lessons in arithmetic 
and geography, spelling and writing, became 
one confusing whirl of numbers and letters and 
meaningless words, and the tears often stood 
in her mournful dark eyes, and her pouting red 
lips often quivered as the teacher tried to ex¬ 
plain a simple lesson before the sly nudges and 
open scorn of her classmates. 

Only Sylvia felt sorry for Leah. She re¬ 
membered how the dark girl had helped her 
catch the butterfly; she had not forgotten the 
heart-hungry look on her swarthy face as the 
sinewy arm had jerked her into the bushes on 
that memorable June day. And many a morn¬ 
ing when Leah took her seat she found on her 
desk a crisp cooky, a rosy apple, a spray of 
scarlet sumac leaves, or some little gift that 
Sylvia had silently put there — the gracious 
offering of a friendly heart. 

The sad, patient eyes followed Sylvia every¬ 
where, with a wistful, longing look. Along 
Leah’s rough, dark path the little golden-haired 
child was the one bit of love and beauty she 


65 


Sylvia s Great Adventure 

had met But she was used to being friendless 
and alone, and she did not presume upon 
Sylvia’s little unobtrusive kindnesses. 

Then, one day Leah did not come to school, 
and the teacher gave her seat to another pupil. 
“ The Bad Girl’s ” poor little attempt at an 
education was over. 

One mild Saturday in early November, 
Sylvia and the two oldest Tweenies, who had 
reached the dignity of the sixth and seventh 
grades, respectively, were returning from the 
Parson grove, about two miles from the 
Stubbles, with a basket of acorns for Dick 
Tweenie’s tame squirrel. They were tired, and 
hungry, and stopped along the roadside to 
open the package of sandwiches that Mother 
Tweenie had so thoughtfully provided. 

Just across the road from where they stopped 
was an old house, shrinking into the side of 
the hill as if it were ashamed of itself, as well 
it might be, for it was an ugly, tumbledown, 
unpainted thing. Their repast was almost over 
when the door of the old house burst suddenly 
open and Leah ran out. Her dress was torn 
and dirty; her black hair hung down about her 


66 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

shoulders. With one arm held tightly against 
her face, hiding it, she ran blindly across the 
road within a few feet of where Sylvia and the 
Tweenies sat, hidden by a clump of bushes. 

Close at her heels came the heavy-jawed, 
black-eyed fellow whom Sylvia recognized as 
the one who had jerked Leah into the bushes 
that day in the summer. In his hand he carried 
a whip, but he was laughing—a loud, un¬ 
pleasant laugh, that parted his thick lips and 
spread his wide, cruel-looking nostrils. He 
caught hold of her, just as she reached the other 
side of the road, and raised the whip as if to 
strike. 

Sylvia clutched the nearest Tweenie. “ Oh, 
stop — stop that!” she screamed. 

“ Are you going to do what I say, Missey? ” 
the man demanded. 

The girl, with a sob, tried to free herself 
from him. 

“ Oh! ” moaned Sylvia, clasping her hands in 
terror. 

But the oldest Tweenie laid a warning finger 
on her lips and pulled her into the bushes, out 
of the Warrens’ view. 


Sylvia s Great Adventure 67 

An old man was hobbling across the road, 
swearing loudly. 

“ Let go that girl, Harry Warren! You dirty 
dog! As long as I live don’t you lay hands on 
her again! ” 

He was a bent, decrepit little man, but there 
was a strange power in his flashing black eyes 
that made the other draw back. 

“All right, Granddad,” he said, with his 
insolent laugh. “ Don’t lose your temper. But 
remember, you won’t live forever — and then 
just let her watch out! She needn’t think she’s 
goin’ to get away from me!” 

The girl, sinking down upon the ground, 
sobbed out passionately. 

“ They ain’t anything in the world for me 
— anywhere! ” 

The old man patted her shoulder and lifted 
her to her feet. “ There, there, Honey, don’t 
ye be afeared. Young Harry’ll find out yer 
Granddad’s far from dead yet, if he don’t 
leave yer alone! ” 

The younger man laughed, a snarling laugh, 
and the three went back across the road and 
disappeared inside the dingy house. 


68 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ C’mon,” said the oldest Tweenie, gather¬ 
ing up the basket of acorns. “ Let’s go.” But 
Sylvia stood white and trembling. 

“ Oh, dear, did you hear what she said? — 
couldn’t we do something?—” 

“Naw,” said the younger Tweenie, a we 
dasn’t. They’re bad folks. Anyway, the old 
man’ll take care of her.” 

Sylvia reluctantly arose and they began the 
walk home, but a shadow had fallen across 
the brightness of the day for her. The thought 
of Leah and the cruel, dark man weighed 
heavily on the girl’s tender little heart, as she 
strolled slowly along. The Tweenies scampered 
on ahead, darting from one side of the road to 
the other. The two had rounded a bend in 
the road, Sylvia still dallying absent-mindedly 
along, switching the dried weeds with a little 
hazel whip, when her attention was arrested 
by swift footsteps behind her. It was Leah. 

“ Oh, Honey,” the dark girl cried, throwing 
her arms about her. “ I’ve wanted to see you 
so, an’ tell you I ain’t really bad — I know 
you an’ the others thought I was but I was 
tryin’ hard to be good, an’—” 


69 


Sylvia s Great Adventure 

“ I know you were, Leah,” said Sylvia, a I 
knew—I knew you were good, ’cause you 
helped me catch the White Butterfly, ’n I loved 
you so — but Daddy Jim—” 

The dark face of the “ Bad Girl ” lighted 
with a warm glow of happiness. 

“ I know — your Daddy Jim is a good man. 
He’s doing what he thinks is right — an’ I 
guess it is. But I had to see you again before 
I go — to tell you I ain’t bad — an’ I’m never 
goin’ to be bad for your sake—” 

“ Oh, are you going away? ” cried Sylvia. 
“Yes, Honey — but you mustn’t tell. I’ve 
got to fly back before he kills me — I just hap¬ 
pened to see you an’ the Tweenies goin’ down 
the road an’ I knew I wouldn’t have another 
chanct. Good-bye, good-bye, little honey girl 
— don’t you never fergit me.” And with a 
swift embrace she was gone. 

All the rest of the way home Sylvia was 
very quiet. Even the semi-hostile scuffles of 
the Tweenies failed to arouse her from her 
thoughtful mood, and she bade them an absent- 
minded farewell at the gate and left them 
without her usual motherly admonition to go 


70 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

right straight home and to be sure not to stop 
to sail chip boats when they came to the creek. 

Supper was always a pleasant meal at the 
Little Gray House. Daddy Jim and Sylvia 
usually lingered at the round table, over the 
pretty blue-and-white willow ware dishes that 
so quaintly portrayed the story of two lovers 
who were turned into doves. It was here, 
under the light from the rose-shaded lamp, 
that they talked over the happenings of the 
day-just-past, and discussed the plans for the 
day-to-come; here that they told each other 
stories of beautiful make-believe things, recall¬ 
ing many of the Poet’s songs and fancies, and 
Doctor Billy’s funny tales. 

To-night as they carried the dishes in from 
the cozy kitchen, Sylvia was noticeably quiet, 
and even Daddy Jim’s antics with the serving 
tray, which usually brought forth gales of 
laughter, elicited only a wan smile from her. 

The thought of Leah was still worrying her. 
If she could only do something to help the 
girl. It seemed that there was something they 
might and ought to do for a fellow creature 
in distress. Still, Daddy Jim had seemed so 


71 


Sylvia s Great Adventure 

firm in his belief that the Warrens were 
thoroughly bad, and so insistent in his com¬ 
mands that she leave Leah entirely alone, she 
hardly dared broach the subject. Then, too, 
she was sure she had heard Daddy Jim say the 
Warrens had been driven away from the 
Stubbles some weeks before. Had they re¬ 
turned, or had they been in hiding these past 
weeks, and never really left? She recollected 
vaguely that Leah had said she was going 
away — and not to tell. She had no thought 
of disobeying dear Daddy Jim, and no wish to 
deceive him. Oh, dear, ought she to tell him 
what she had seen that afternoon, and that 
Leah was going away? 

Daddy Jim had noticed her pensive mood, 
and when they were finally seated at the table 
he leaned across the plates with an air of mock 
mystery and delightful anticipation. 

“ What do you suppose I heard on my way 
home to-night? — some news.” 

“ Good news?” asked Sylvia evincing a wee 
bit of interest. 

“ Well,” he replied, “ first you must guess 
what it is.” 


72 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ Oh, Daddy Jim, Doctor Billy isn’t coming, 
is he?” 

He shook his head. “ Not until his Christ¬ 
mas vacation.” 

“ The hospital isn’t finished yet, is it?” 

“No — they can’t possibly finish it before 
spring at the present rate.” 

“ Oh, tell me, Daddy, what it is! Don’t make 
me wait,” cried Sylvia. 

“ Well,” he began, with provoking slowness 
and a twinkle in his eye, “ as I was coming 
out of Petey Swanson’s store to-night — I’d 
stopped there to buy some sugar and some 
crackers, because I just felt in my bones that 
my Keeper-of-the-Pantry had gone to gather 
acorns and forgotten that we were out of 
both —” 

Sylvia covered her face with her hands and 
an ashamed little voice came from between 
her fingers: “ Oh, I’m so sorry, Daddy Jim — 
I did forget all about it.” 

“Never mind,” he replied, “you’ll remem¬ 
ber next time, I know. Well, as I told you, I 
was just coming out of the store when I met 
Mrs. Clark. She had her arms full of bundles 


Sylvia s Great Adventure 73 

and baskets — and what do you think she 
said? ” 

“Oh, what? — that Hilda is going to have 
a party? ” 

“No” 

“ That we’re going to have another teacher 
at the school, then?” 

“ No, no, you’re wrong. She said, ‘ Mr. 
Gray, did you know that there is a brand new 
baby boy at the Tweenies’ house!’ ” 

Sylvia opened her mouth in astonishment. 
“Honestly—Daddy Jim? Why, just think, 
that makes nine! Whatever will they do now. 
Who will wash their faces, now that Mrs. 
Tweenie has a little tiny baby to take care of? ” 
she cried in despair. “ It really isn’t her fault, 
Daddy Jim, that her children are always dirty, 
’cause by the time she gets the last one cleaned 
up the first one’s ready to begin on again. 
Daddy Jim, why is it that the Tweenies have 
so many, many, and the Lonely Lady hasn’t 
any at all? ” A worried little despairing frown 
flitted across Sylvia’s brow. 

“Well,” said Daddy Jim gravely, “that’s a 
tremendous subject, Sylvia, and I really can’t 


74 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

go into it. You might go over to the Tweenies’ 
in a couple of days and see if you can’t wash 
a few faces and comb a few heads.” 

“ I will,” said Sylvia with a determined shake 
of her sunny head, “ and I think I’ll ask the 
Lonely Lady if she wouldn’t like to have two 
or three of the Tweenies to take care of — I 
think things ought to be evened up more.” 

“ Of course, Mrs. Tweenie may not feel the 
same as you do about it,” said Daddy Jim, “ so 
don’t set your heart on your plans.” 

“ But I’m sure she’ll be glad to have some¬ 
body take care of some of them, and anybody 
who can make flowers grow as well as the 
Lonely Lady, could surely take good care of 
children,” said Sylvia. 

Daddy Jim’s reply was interrupted by a 
loud rap at the door in the next room. He 
went to answer it and presently Sylvia heard 
him talking to another man. She loved Daddy 
Jim’s voice, it was so deep and quiet, but just 
now it seemed rather excited. A raw wind had 
sprung up and a driving rain pelting against 
the window panes partly drowned out what 
they were saying. 


75 


Sylvia s Great Adventure 

Daddy Jim was so rarely excited that Sylvia 
listened wonderingly. 

“ You say they are still there? This is the 
third time I’ve warned them. I told them if 
they were not out of town — every man, 
woman and child of them — by three o’clock 
this afternoon I’d see that they got out. They’ve 
had plenty of time. Did they seem to be 
making any preparation?” 

“ None that I could see. Old man Warren 
said the girl, Leah, had gone somewhere. They 
were waiting for her to get back.” 

“ I’ve stood for their foolishness long 
enough!” said Daddy Jim sternly. “Rain or 
no rain, out they go this very night. You 
come with me, Clark. We’ll pick up some 
other men along the way.” 

Sylvia leaned forward, pale and frightened. 
She knew now what the “ Bad Girl ” had 
meant when she said she couldn’t go away 
without seeing her again, and that Daddy Jim 
was doing what he thought was right. She had 
said good-bye as one says it for the last time. 
Daddy Jim was going to drive Leah — good, 
beautiful Leah, away from her forever! 


76 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

Mr. Gray stepped back into the dining room. 
“ Daddy must go out for about an hour on an 
important errand. His little girl won’t mind 
staying here alone, will she?” he said. 

Sylvia, too terrified to speak, nodded silently 
and, with a hasty kiss, he left her. 

She went to the window and flattening her 
nose against the pane, gazed out into the black, 
starless night, and in the soughing of the wind 
she seemed to hear Leah’s cry as she had heard 
it that afternoon — “ They ain’t anything in 
the world for me — anywhere!” 

That decided Sylvia; with trembling hands 
she put on her sweater and little red rain-cape 
and ran out through the rain to the barn. 

Without stopping for either saddle or bridle 
she climbed upon Bumps’ broad back, and 
with only the rope halter for guide, urged him 
out into the muddy road. Holding her face 
down close to his neck, she whispered in his 
ear, “ Hurry, Bumpsy, dear — oh, hurry, hurry, 
hurry! ” 

But Bumps had reached the time of life 
when he looked upon hurry as one of the 
follies of youth, beneath the dignity of retired 


77 


Sylvia s Great Adventure 

old age. He would not hurry, and he resented 
being dragged out of his warm stall into the 
cold, wet night. 

Sylvia coaxed, threatened and kicked with 
heels against his sides, but the journey around 
the hill where the Lonely Lady lived and on 
through the lonely woods to the tumbledown 
shack was like a horrible nightmare. 

But at last she came within sight of the War¬ 
rens’ old board shanty, sneaking, like a thief, 
into the side of the hill. From the windows 
shone a dim light, blotted out now and then 
by hurrying figures moving back and forth in¬ 
side the house. 

Sylvia could no longer wait for Bumps. She 
slipped from his back, and led him into a 
sheltered little nook in the thicket. Then she 
ran on a few yards to the shack and quietly 
opened the rickety old door a few inches. There 
they stood, much as she had pictured them. 
Her quick eyes took in the scene at a glance 
— Daddy Jim, straight and tall, with arms 
folded relentlessly, with an angry, hard look in 
his eyes, and an angry tone in his deep voice. 
In the background stood Mr. Clark and several 


78 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

other men from the Stubbles, dripping with 
rain which ran in tiny rivulets across the 
slivered board floor. An old man, the one 
Sylvia had seen that afternoon, sat stolidly by 
the table — waiting. Several women, with 
dark, wrinkled, cruel faces, were moving about. 
And on the floor, kneeling beside a dilapidated 
half-filled suit-case, was Leah, her black hair 
hanging in straggly wisps about her swarthy 
face, the red waist she wore making the one 
bright spot in the dingy little room. Daddy 
Jim had been speaking as Sylvia cautiously 
opened the door, but she heard only his last 
words — “ and you will go now — all of you! ” 

With a cry of dismay the little red-caped 
figure darted across the sagging floor and threw 
her arms protectingly about the “ Bad Girl.” 

“No, no, Daddy Jim! You mustn’t drive 
her away — out into the dark and the rain. 
She’s a good girl — I know—I know!” 

Daddy Jim, his face very white and stern, 
crossed the little room with one stride and 
gently lifted Sylvia from Leah’s side. 

Startled, wondering eyes were turned on the 
three figures in the center of the room. u Syl- 


Sylvia s Great Adventure 79 

via,” said Daddy Jim in a low, firm voice, 
“what does this mean?” 

“ You mustn’t let her go, Daddy — not Leah! 
You wouldn’t send her away when I love her! 
She’s good, she’s good, she’s good,” screamed 
the child hysterically. 

“ Poor little kiddie,” murmured Daddy Jim 
sympathetically. Then turning to one of the 
men he said in low tones, “ I’ll have to leave 
you in charge here, Clark. I must get the child 
home — she’s drenched with rain. See that 
they’re out by daylight.” 

He had taken Sylvia in his arms and was 
carrying her toward the door when the old 
man, who had watched in silence with bright, 
sneering eyes, hobbled toward him. 

“She’s right—the little kid’s right! My 
granddaughter is good — as good an’ pure as 
your own child there. Whatever the rest o’ us 
may be, she’s straight! An you haven’t got a 
right to drive her out. God knows she’s had 
a hard enough time of it! She ought to hev’ 
a chance! ” 

Daddy Jim stood still. Law was law, and 
order was order. But Sylvia’s pleading arms 


80 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

were about his neck, her blue, tear-filled eyes 
were looking into his and her hot, flushed little 
cheek brushed his as she whispered, “ Let’s 
give her a chance, Daddy; just one more 
chance. Let’s take her home with us. She 
hasn’t anybody to be good to her and its dread¬ 
ful to be a Lonely Person.” 

Daddy Jim bowed his head for an instant 
and swallowed hard. Then he turned to the 
old man. “ I wouldn’t trust your word any¬ 
where,” he said, “ but I will trust my little 
girl’s intuition. If you will swear to give up 
every claim to the girl and never try to see her 
again, I’ll take her with me and see that she 
gets a good home somewhere. 

A young man with heavy jaw and bleary 
eyes — the one who had followed Leah across 
the road that morning — staggered forward in 
protest. 

“Huh! Who’re you to be sayin’ who’s 
good ’n who’s bad! ” he sneered at Daddy Jim, 
whose face had grown suddenly drawn and 
haggard. “ Who’re you, to be orderin’ us 
ofifn the place. Who knows anything about 
you?” Then turning to the old man, “See 


81 


Sylvia s Great Adventure 

here, Gran’dad, don’t get funny! She ain’t 
goin’ to get away from me — not by the aid 
of a meddlin’ constable or anybody else!” He 
swore viciously, but the old man pushed him 
aside. 

“ Get your things, Leah girl, an’ go with 
them. You’ve done yer best to live right — 
but you ain’t got a chance in this family. An’ 
sometimes, when you go —” Suddenly the old 
man’s voice broke, as the girl came to him and 
put her arms about his neck. “ An’ sometimes 
when you go to the church, where ye’ve always 
wanted to go — maybe ye’ll say a little — 
prayer—fer yer old gran’dad.” 

“ I wish you could go with me, gran’father,” 
sobbed the girl. 

“ No, no,” he said, stroking her rough hair, 
“ it’s too late — too late fer me.” And tears 
fell from the dim old eyes upon the girl’s dark 
head against his shoulder. 

“ Good-bye, girl. Now run along.” 


CHAPTER V 


Clouds and Sunshine 

HEN Daddy Jim came to waken 
Sylvia the next morning he found 
her tossing with a burning fever 
and muttering brokenly with a 
swollen throat, of bad girls and Bumps and 
cruel whips. 

He hurried down to the kitchen, but Leah 
was there before him, straightening the room, 
disordered by their late return the night be¬ 
fore. She had put the tea kettle on the stove 
and it was singing merrily. As Daddy Jim 
entered she darted a shy look at him and said 
in a timid, apologetic voice, “ I can work, an’ 
I want to pay up for yer bein’ so kind. I can 
cook some — an’ I can clean up the house.” 

The worried look in Daddy Jim’s face gave 
way an instant to an expression of gratitude. 
“ Yes, yes,” he said, “ Sylvia is desperately ill 

— last night’s trip in the rain, I suppose — I 

82 




Clouds and Sunshine 83 

must get Dr. Lynn. Oh, if Doctor Billy were 
only at home.” 

Stepping to the telephone, he asked for a 
Fairmont connection, waited a moment, then 
with a gesture of despair, he exclaimed, “ The 
wind of last night has put the wires to Fair¬ 
mont out of commission — I’ll have to ride in 
— and my precious baby suffering! ” 

He walked back and forth distractedly, for 
a second. “ Go over to Mrs. Tweenie’s, girl, 
and ask her — wait — she can’t come — Granny 
Evans would, but—” 

“ What was it you was wantin’, sir? ” asked 
Leah, anxiously. “ Let me do it. I can stay 
an’ take care of her or I’ll ride to Fairmont for 
the doctor. Please, sir, I want to — I’m just 
dyin’ to do something fer her.” 

Daddy Jim looked at her keenly. Could he 
trust her? If he let her go to Fairmont would 
she flee to her thieving, lying tribe? Or if he 
trusted Sylvia to her care, and went himself, 
would she do the same? 

“ Please, sir, honest you can trust me.” The 
dark eyes were pleading eloquently. A little 
moan from the room above caught his ears, a 


84 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

wailing cry of delirium — “ I know she’s good. 
I know she’s good.” 

“ I’ll go,” he said abruptly. “ You stay here 
with her—I’ll be back with the old doctor as 
soon as I can. Oh, if Doctor Billy were only 
here! And remember, Leah, that I trust you 
until I return — as she trusted you.” 

When Daddy Jim and old Dr. Lynn arrived 
at the Little Gray House they found Leah 
superintending the sick room with the air of 
a professional nurse. She had bathed Sylvia’s 
feverish brow and hands, moistened her dry 
lips and given her refreshing sips of orange 
juice to soothe the swollen, inflamed throat, and 
the child was sleeping quietly. 

Old Dr. Lynn felt her pulse, listened to her 
short, quick breathing and shook his head 
gravely. His keen eyes took in every detail 
of the little room. The curtain shades all raised 
to the same height; the edge of the sheet turned 
back neatly over the counterpane; Sylvia’s 
pillow carefully smoothed; her little garments 
folded and laid in order on the cedar chest 
Then he motioned for Daddy Jim to follow 
him into the hall. 


Clouds and Sunshine 85 

“ When did this come on? ” he asked in gruff 
undertones. Leah strained her ears to hear, but 
Daddy Jim’s replies were very low. 

“ Humph! Out in the rain to save that 
trash! ” said the doctor. And he blew his nose 
loudly. 

Sylvia’s father murmured something else. 

“ That’s true,” said Dr. Lynn in a more 
kindly tone. “ She may be a bad egg but she’s 
a born nurse — I can tell them the minute I 
see them. She’s done precisely the right thing 
for the child. Instinct, I suppose.” 

They talked for a few moments longer, then 
they moved on and Leah heard the quiet closing 
of the door which meant that the doctor was 
gone. 

She stole down to the kitchen. “ What did 
the doctor say about her, sir? ” she asked fear¬ 
fully. “ Is she very sick? ” 

“ Yes, Leah,” said Daddy Jim in a more 
kindly tone than he had used before. “ She is 
a very sick child, Dr. Lynn says. Last night’s 
excitement and exposure were enough to harm 
a far stronger person than Sylvia. He says it 
may develop into—” 


86 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

But Leah did not hear the rest of the sen¬ 
tence. Her dark head was upon her arm and 
sobs shook her slender shoulders, “ An’ all be¬ 
cause she was tryin’ to save me,” she wept 

Daddy Jim touched her head gently with 
his hand. “ There, there,” he said, furtively 
wiping his own eyes, “ crying won’t help her 
get well, but Dr. Lynn says you are to take care 
of her. He’ll be back this afternoon and will 
tell you exactly what to do. 

Old Dr. Lynn came back that afternoon, and 
the next day; sometimes twice a day, for two 
anxious weeks, for Sylvia was gravely ill. A 
melancholy pall had fallen over the Little 
Gray House — over the Stubbles, in fact, for 
not an inhabitant there but had been brightened 
and cheered at some time or other by Sylvia’s 
sunny curls and loving little ministrations. 
Every day a square white envelope came in the 
mail from Doctor Billy, to be read by the 
Princess Sylvia when she was well enough. 
Daddy Jim piled them on the mantel shelf. 

One dreary morning when Sylvia seemed 
particularly apathetic, Leah carried the little 
packet of letters into her bedroom. 


Clouds and Sunshine 87 

“ See here, Honey,” she said, holding them 
up, “ all these nice fat letters from Doctor 
Billy. You must hurry up and get better so 
you can read ’em.” 

Sylvia turned her face away and was silent 
for several moments. Then a weak little voice 
came from the pillows: “ Leah, s’posin’ I 
should die and never, never read the letters 
and —” 

“ Oh, no, Honey, you ain’t going to die — 
we won’t let you — you mustn’t talk that way.” 
The slender figure swiftly knelt at the bedside 
and the dark head went down on the pillow be¬ 
side the golden one, while silent tears trickled 
down Leah’s cheeks. 

“ Don’t cry, Leah,” said Sylvia, stretching 
out a white little hand. “ What are you crying 
for? I’m not afraid to die — not one bit afraid 
— if that’s it. Course I’d be sorry to leave 
Daddy Jim and Doctor Billy and you and the 
Lonely Lady and everybody — but you see, 
Leah, when the Gates opened for me, like they 
did for the Poet, my mother’d be there — she’d 
be awfully glad to see me, I know. And 
there’d be the Poet and Jester—I’d love to 


88 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

see the Poet again — he could tell me a lot 
more stories and songs and things and maybe 
I could tell them to you in your dreams, or on 
summer days when you’re out in the fields and 
the sun is shining so bright you have to squint, 
and you can just see the breeze — going, oh, 
so softly — softly over the grass—” The little 
voice grew fainter, and the purple clouded 
eyelids slowly closed, and Leah, thinking she 
was asleep, started to tiptoe from the room. 

But Sylvia called her back. “ Don’t go, 
Leah, I wasn’t asleep. I just got to thinking 
about the Poet, and that’s why I shut my eyes.” 
She smiled faintly. 

“ Leah, there’s something I’d like to ask you 
to do for me,” she began hesitatingly. “ Do 
you s’pose you could?” 

“ Sure, I could do anything for you, Honey. 
What is it you want? ” 

“ Well, would you just as soon read to me 
out of the Bible? ” 

A startled expression flashed across Leah’s 
face and her chin quivered, but nodding an 
affirmative, she arose quickly and left the room, 
her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. 


Clouds and Sunshine 89 

“ Jimminy crickets! ” she cried, throwing her 
apron over her head, “ she’s going to die sure. 
I know she is. They always want the Bible 
read to ’em just before they do. Oh, dear God, 
please, please, don’t let her die. I’ll be good 
forever’n ever, amen, if you’ll only let her 
live! ” She wrung her hands in a paroxysm of 
grief. Then, summoning all her will power 
she suppressed her weeping, bathed her eyes 
at the kitchen sink and hurried back to Sylvia 
with the little Bible which always lay on the 
center table in the sitting room. 

Daily the Lonely Lady picked her way down 
the hill, through the snowdrifts which had 
followed on the heels of the whistling winds and 
cold rains, to bring the little patient hot, 
nourishing broths, or delicate puddings or 
crystal clear jellies and palatable, out-of-season 
fruits. The Tweenies came to shovel paths, to 
make grotesque snow men in the vain hope that 
“ to-morrow ” Sylvia would be well enough to 
come to the window and look out, to help 
Daddy Jim take care of Bumps, or to bring 
stiff little nosegays of red and white geranium 
blossoms cut from their mother’s house plants. 


90 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

Mrs. Jones came one morning, pulling the 
Jones Baby on a soap-box sled, to inquire how 
Sylvia was getting along. 

“ Oh, I’m so thankful she’s going to get 
better,” she said. “ It’s to her I partly owe 
my baby’s life. He was very, very sick — 
dying, in fact, when she brought in a doctor 
and he saved him.” 

“Yes, that was Doctor Billy,” said Leah. 
“ His father is takin’ care o’ Sylvia — he’s 
cornin’ in the gate right now.” 

“ Oh,” said Mrs. Jones, rising suddenly and 
taking the cooing baby out of Leah’s arms, “ I 
must go — no, don’t get up, I’ll go right out 
the back door. I’ve got to stop at Granny 
Evans’ for—” 

“ But why don’t you wait until the doctor’s 
been here and see what he says about her? ” 

“No — I must go — it’s just as well that he 
don’t see me here. He doesn’t care to see me 
or me him. Til come in again,” said Mrs. 
Jones, and made a hurried exit the back way. 

“Humph!” said Leah as the door closed 
upon her, “ wonder what her awful hurry is, 
all of a sudden.” 


Clouds and Sunshine 91 

Old Dr. Lynn brought good news from 
the sick room, where Daddy Jim had been 
relieving Leah for a couple of hours. The 

crisis was safely past, he said, and with con- 

* 

tinued good care there was no reason why Sylvia 
should not recover rapidly, and be well enough 
to enjoy Christmas with the rest of them. 

The Little Gray House took on an air of 
joyful anticipation. Sylvia was getting better; 
the sun was going to shine again; Christmas 
was coming, and it would bring Doctor Billy 
with it. 

Daddy Jim broke the beautiful news to 
Sylvia — very gently, for she was still weak. 

“ Do you know, that Ogre has promised me 
the most gorgeous Christmas present, all done 
up in — not tissue paper — but what do you 
s’pose— in a patchwork quilt and a blue bath¬ 
robe and a pink flannel nightie!” Sylvia 
smiled and turned her head eagerly on the 
pillow. “Why, Daddy Jim, that sounds just 
like me! ” 

“Well — that’s just what it is — you! I’m 
going to have you all well, and downstairs by 
Christmas day — maybe before.” 


92 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ I’ve been pretty sick, haven’t I, Daddy 
Jim?” 

“Yes, dear, but it’s all over now, and you’re 
getting better every minute of every day.” 

“ And Leah’s been taking care of me, hasn’t 
she — and you and the Ogre, too? But he 
wasn’t cross.” 

“No, indeed,” said Daddy Jim, stroking her 
little white hand. 

“ I had awfully funny dreams, Daddy, all 
mixed-up ones about men with big whips, 
chasing the Lonely Lady, and I thought you 
were singing the Poet’s songs downstairs all the 
time, and Bumps kept running away with me, 
and Doctor Billy was shooing a white butter¬ 
fly all over the Lonely Lady’s garden and it 
kept turning into Leah and trying to fly through 
the gates — the ones the Poet went through 
— and I can’t remember the rest, Daddy Jim, 
but it made my head ache.” 

“ Don’t think about it, dear,” he replied. 
“Just think about the happy times ahead of 
us with you all well, and Doctor Billy spend¬ 
ing the holidays in Fairmont where he can run 
out here often and visit with us.” 


Clouds and Sunshine 93 

So Sylvia turned her little pale face to the 
wall, and was soon in the land of sleep where 
the dreams were all happy ones. 

Once she began to get better, her strength 
and color and appetite came back by leaps and 
bounds, and by two days before Christmas she 
felt almost as well as ever. Gruff old Dr. 
Lynn had discontinued his visits, except for 
an occasional brief call, when he happened to 
be driving through the Stubbles. 

He had been greatly impressed by Leah’s 
ability as a nurse, and had proposed to Daddy 
Jim that he take her to his own home, to help 
old Hannah, who had looked after the Lynn 
family ever since the mother had died many 
years ago, and who was getting rather slow. 

Daddy Jim had acquiesced at once. That 
would be a fine plan, he thought, and he was 
glad that Leah was to find so good a home. 
And so, Leah left the Little Gray House at 
the Stubbles for the Big Stone House at Fair¬ 
mont. 

Sylvia had looked forward with sadness to 
the day she was to go, and had spent a tearful 
half-hour after her departure, shut in the 


94 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

pantry, hiding her face against Minerva’s furry 
side, until Daddy Jim found her. “ I’m just 
crying, Minerva, because Leah’s going to leave 
me and because I’m feeling sorry for myself. 
Course I’m glad she’s going to live at Doctor 
Billy’s house and to have a nice home and folks 
to be good to her,” he heard her saying, and 
Minerva had sympathetically licked the quiver¬ 
ing chin with a rough pink tongue. 

And then, before the tears were fairly dry, 
the mail man had left a square white envelope 
with a note from Doctor Billy to Daddy Jim. 
He read it aloud to Sylvia. 

“Dear Mr. Gray: 

“ I’ve just landed in Fairmont, and every¬ 
thing's in a muddle at our house. Everybody's 
got an awful grouch on, from Dad to Hannah. 

I knew this note would beat me to the Stubbles 
— I’m coming out Monday, so I sent it on to 
give you time to prepare to grant my humble 
request. It isn't really humble at all, but the 
height of presumption. Here it is: May we bor¬ 
row Sylvia for a few days, over Christmas, I 
mean. If we may, I'll take her back to the ‘ House 
of the Grouches' with me, when I come on Mon¬ 
day. There — it’s out. As a budding physician 
I can't prescribe anything that would be more 


Clouds and Sunshine 95 

beneficial to the household in general. Will you 
come, too, and spend Christmas with us ? 

“ Here’s hoping Doctor Sylvia doesn’t disap¬ 
point us. If she does, 

“Gloomily yours, 

“Doctor Billy.” 

“Well?” said Daddy Jim. 

“Well?” echoed Sylvia. “Will you go?” 
Daddy Jim looked steadily from the win¬ 
dow and a queer worried expression crossed 
his face. “To Fairmont?” he said tonelessly. 
“ Why, I couldn’t go, dear. There are the 
fires — they couldn’t be left — and Bumps and 
Minerva to feed and — ” 

“Oh, Daddy Jim!” said Sylvia coaxingly, 
“ couldn’t you go just for one day — for Christ¬ 
mas day, anyway? You could fix the fires be¬ 
fore you go, in the morning, and they’d be all 
right by night, and Bumps and Minerva — ” 
“No, no, little daughter, Daddy Jim can’t 
possibly go,” he said firmly. “ But Doctor 
Billy’s note sounds desperate. I think you’d 
better go.” 

“ Oh, no, I couldn’t leave you alone, Daddy 
Jim — right at Christmas time.” 

“ I can manage, dear, and I think perhaps 



96 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

the change will do you good. In fact, I’m 
highly in favor of the plan,” he added, as 
Sylvia’s enthusiasm seemed to waver. “ We’ll 
have our own little Christmas celebration to¬ 
gether before you go. It won’t matter if it is 
a bit previous.” 

“ Oh, yes, let’s, with Doctor Billy and the 
Lonely Lady and the Tweenies, and it’ll be just 
like last summer,” cried Sylvia, clapping her 
hands. 

“ And then I’ll be perfectly content to lend 
you for a little while.” 

So it was decided that Sylvia should go, and 
while Daddy Jim wrote an answer to Doctor 
Billy’s note, she began at once to pack her 
little wicker suitcase (because, of course, half 
the pleasure of a journey lies in packing and 
repacking for days before you start), laying 
the carefully ironed handkerchiefs, which Mrs. 
Jones had sent home that morning, in precise 
piles, wrapping her “ best ” hair ribbons in 
tissue paper, and laying out the blue em¬ 
broidered Japanese kimono which the Lonely 
Lady had brought during her illness, folded in 
its original creases. 


Clouds and Sunshine 97 

There were a dozen exciting little tasks to 
finish up for the Christmas celebration they 
were to hold at the Little Gray House before 
Sylvia’s departure; the popcorn and cranberries 
to string for the tree; the presents to finish and 
wrap up and seal with Christmas seals, the 
mistletoe to hang in the doorway, and the holly 
wreaths in the windows. Sylvia fluttered from 
one to the other in pleasant anticipation. 

The day of Doctor Billy’s arrival crawled 
by at a snail’s pace, or so it seemed to her; but 
finally evening came. Everything was ready, 
the candles on the tree lighted; the logs in the 
fireplace crackling merrily; the presents piled 
up in front of the grate, and a huge plate of 
Granny Evans’ luscious sugared doughnuts on 
the kitchen table. Daddy Jim had gone to the 
barn to be sure that the door was securely 
fastened against the rising wind and that Bumps 
was warm and comfortable for the night. 

“There!” gasped Sylvia in dismay. “I 
forgot to have Daddy Jim put up the mistle¬ 
toe — and we’ve got to have that, same’s the 
holly wreaths. They’ll be coming any minute. 
I know I can fix it myself.” 


98 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

She darted into the kitchen and came back 
lugging a chair, the spray of mistletoe and the 
tack hammer. The chair was quickly placed in 
the doorway, the big, thick dictionary and a 
sofa pillow adjusted to make it high enough, 
and up Sylvia clambered. She had taken but 
one wabbly drive with the little hammer against 
the more wabbly pin, when there came a 
stamping of feet on the little front porch, a 
rush of cold, fresh air as the door quickly 
opened and closed and she found herself smoth¬ 
ered and wriggling and gasping in the embrace 
of two strong arms and Doctor Billy’s beloved 
voice was crying “Merry Christmas! Happy 
New Year! Merry Christmas, Sylvia Sun¬ 
shine, Fairy Princess, Rainbow Star Child!” 
And Doctor Billy was planting big smacking 
kisses on her mouth and cheeks and forehead 
as he dangled the fallen mistletoe over her head 
and kept singing a rollicking song about “ The 
sweetest time to kiss a miss, is under the 
mistletoe.” 

Before she had had time to catch her breath 
and really to know what had happened, Daddy 
Jim came hurrying in, and pretty soon the 


Clouds and Sunshine 


99 


Lonely Lady. Then in a few minutes the 
Tweenies, washed and brushed to a beautiful 
state of rosiness and shininess, and so full of 
Christmas joy and rapture that it just nat¬ 
urally had to brim over and spread among 
the other guests, and it was but a few min¬ 
utes before the rooms in the Little Gray House 
were ringing with jollity. The tissue paper 
packages were unwrapped amidst joyous 
“Oh’s!” and “Ah’s”; the very tiptoes of the 
stockings were explored; the gay little tree 
was dismantled of its popcorn and its frosted 
cookies; Christmas carols were sung; and 
finally when the last sugared doughnut had 
disappeared and the red and green candles 
began to burn low and send little drizzles of 
wax down through the fragrant green boughs, 
and when the tiniest Tweenie couldn’t hold one 
more puffy popcorn flake, the Lonely Lady re¬ 
membered it was long past the polite time to 
go home. Doctor Billy said he knew it was, too, 
but as he was to take the hostess back to Fair¬ 
mont with him he had hardly liked to suggest 
breaking up the party. 

They bundled up the sleepy Tweenies and 


> > 
> > i 





> 


100 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

Daddy Jim helped the Lonely Lady into her 
warm fur coat and brought out Sylvia’s suit¬ 
case all packed for the journey. 

“ Good-bye, Daddy, dear,” said Sylvia, 
gravely, reaching up to draw his face down 
to hers. “ Are you perfickly sure you won’t 
be lonesome without me? It don’t seem’s if 
I ought to go and leave you on Christmas Day. 
Oh, please won’t you see if you can’t help my 
Daddy Jim to keep from being lonesome?” 
she entreated, turning to the Lonely Lady. 
Sylvia thought her cheeks grew rosy as she 
bent over the tiniest Tweenie and pried a re¬ 
fractory button through a too-snug buttonhole 
— or perhaps it was the reflection from the 
flickering candles — but she smiled brightly 
and said: 

“ Why, surely—Mr. Gray — if it would be 
less lonely for you to join me — us — for 
Christmas dinner I should like very much to 
have you — you see, when one is alone — when 
two are alone, they might so much better be 
together—I mean, of course, on a holiday like 
Christmas.” 

Daddy Jim nodded smilingly at her and said 


t 

c < 

< < \ 

*■ i 


Clouds and Sunshine 101 

nothing, but a thoughtful, tender look, a look 
not quite like any that Sylvia had ever seen 
there before, crept into his eyes. 

“ Them’s my sentiments exactly,” Doctor 
Billy exclaimed enthusiastically, dancing a jig 
about the little living room and looking so 
earnestly at the Lonely Lady that there was no 
mistaking her blushes this time. 

“Well,” said Daddy Jim teasingly, “you 
see, Sylvia, you’ve managed to beg an invitation 
for Christmas dinner for your poor Daddy, so 
I don’t believe you need worry about him. 
Just go ahead and be the helpful dose of 
medicine that Doctor Billy hopes you’ll be.” 

“ I will, Daddy, dear,” she whispered, her 
rosy lips close to his ear, “ I’ll try to remember 
the Secret the Poet found out, that I’m sent ‘ to 
make the way bright.’ ” 

And so she had driven of! with Doctor Billy 
in the starry, winter night. 

They had gone about a mile in silence when 
a grave little voice spoke from the depths of 
the fur robe. “ Doctor Billy, did — which did 
you know first, the Lonely Lady or me? ” 

“ I knew you, Sylvia Sunshine. I never got 


102 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

a peep at the Lonely Lady until you had us 
all at that wonderful birthday party of yours 
last summer. She kept herself shut up in that 
house. I sometimes used to hope she’d get 
sick — not very sick, of course, but just enough 
to have to call me in.” 

Sylvia made no reply. Then, apparently 
changing the subject, she asked, “ Do you ever 
feel as if — as if you might be a Prince?” 

Doctor Billy’s lips twitched at the corners, 
but his gray eyes were very thoughtful. 
“ Well,” he replied gravely, “ I’ve never really 
given the matter any serious attention, Sylvia. 
Of course, I’ve always supposed that I must 
be more or less resigned to being just a poor, 
mortal doctor all the days of my life — but 
— would you like me any better if I were a 
Prince?” 

“ Oh, no! ” said Sylvia. “ I don’t believe I’d 
like you as well, Doctor Billy—I don’t want 
you to be a Prince — at least not the Prince 
I’m thinking about — but I was just afraid 
you might be.” 

“ Then that settles it,” cried Doctor Billy 
with a little sigh of relief. “ I’m not a Prince, 


Clouds and Sunshine 


103 


and I never will be, and if you’ll promise not 
to tell a soul, I’ll tell you why. It’s because 
I don’t want to get old and wrinkled and bald- 
headed. You know princes usually get to be 
kings after awhile if they behave themselves, 
and then they have to wear a crown — and that 
crown, Sylvia, my dear, weighs just tons and 
tons, and it makes wrinkles in their faces and 
drags out their hair by the roots, and they soon 
lose their beauty, and that’s why I’ve decided 
never to be a Prince.” 

Sylvia was very quiet all the rest of the way. 

“ What’s the Princess thinking about? ” asked 
Doctor Billy, leaning over the little mound of 
fur robes that hid all but the top of his little 
passenger’s head. 

“Oh, I was just thinking—about Dragons 
and Princes and lots of things,” she said dream¬ 
ily, and lapsed into another silence that lasted 
until they drove up before the Big Stone House 
in Fairmont. 


CHAPTER VI 


The House of the Grouches 

ELL!” said Doctor Billy as he 
took off Sylvia’s coat and hat, “ this 
is the House of the Grouches! I 
don’t know just what the trouble 
is — it doesn’t seem to be anything that a plain 
doctor man can get at, but I really think what 
we all need is a hypodermic of Unselfishness.” 

Sylvia looked about her in wonder. The dim 
hall they had entered was so large that it seemed 
to her as if the whole of the Little Grey House 
could have been fitted inside with room to 
spare, and she felt awed and homesick. At 
one end of the room a fire glowed and crackled 
and Doctor Billy led her to a deep chair be¬ 
fore it. 

“ What’s the matter, Sylvia Sunshine, don’t 
you like it? ” he asked, and there was a tone of 
disappointment in his voice. 

“Oh — yes — I — I’m going to like it, Doc- 

104 



The House of the Grouches 105 

tor Billy, but it’s so — big, and — and dark! ” 

Doctor Billy looked at her gravely a moment 
as she stood leaning against his knee. The rosy 
light from the fire made a halo of her golden 
hair. “Yes, it is dark, Sylvia Sunshine, but,” 
the twinkle coming back into his eyes, “ why 
that’s the very reason I brought you here — 
‘ to make the way bright.’ But if the Star 
Child is going to shine at all she’ll have to 
go to bed right straight off.” 

He led her up to the wide carpeted stair¬ 
case. “ I got Hannah to put up an extra bed 
in Leah’s room. You know Sylvia Sunshine, 
I’ve been discovering that you were right about 
Leah; she is good. She’s really made of mighty 
fine stuff, and with proper care and polish she’ll 
make a splendid woman and a good wife for 
somebody. I thought maybe you two’d have a 
little visiting you’d like to do. Then, I know 
from my own experience that when you’re on 
your first visit from home, you’re apt to be 
kind of — kind of — well, you like to have 
somebody to talk to if you happen to wake up 
in the night — and somebody to — oh, to tie 
your hair ribbons and button up your apron in 


106 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

the morning — I know I never could get a nice 
stylish do-up on my hair ribbons,” he said 
solemnly. 

Sylvia looked up with a silvery little laugh. 
“ Oh, ho, Doctor Billy, I know you. You 
didn’t want me to miss Daddy Jim an’ — an’ 
Minerva. But honest, I’m goin’ to try not to, 
and after I just cry about three tears with each 
eye, then I’ll go right to sleep,” she ended with 
a yawn, as they reached a door at the end of 
the hall. 

At Doctor Billy’s light rap, the door flew 
open, Leah caught Sylvia up in her arms and 
she bade her host a sleepy good-night. The 
“ three tears from each eye ” were completely 
forgotten in the joy of seeing Leah again. 

They were up bright and early the next 
morning and went downstairs and Doctor Billy 
brought Hannah in to see Sylvia. Hannah was 
broad and round and comfortable looking. She 
always wore an apron — gingham in the morn¬ 
ing, white lawn in the afternoon — tied snugly 
about her wide waist. Her round face was 
rosy and good-natured and almost always smil¬ 
ing; but just now there was a little crooked 


The House of the Grouches 107 

frown between her eyes, and a surly look 
about her mouth. She relented a little, how¬ 
ever, to smile back at Sylvia. Nobody could 
help smiling back at Sylvia. 

Suddenly, everyone in the room gave a little 
jump as something was thrown violently upon 
the floor above their heads, and then from the 
top of the wide stairway came a deep roar, 
“ Where in thunder are my slippers? ” 

“ That’s Dad!” whispered Doctor Billy. 
Hannah’s back stiffened, and she crossed her 
arms upon her stomach with a sort of fierce 
resignation. “ They are just where he left 
them — one in the bathroom and one in the 
hall outside! I wouldn’t touch the old things! ” 
Doctor Billy stepped to the bottom of the 
stairs and cheerfully repeated Hannah’s direc¬ 
tions. Then he added gaily, “ We have com¬ 
pany, Dad, so put on your best bib and tucker 
and hurry down!” 

Another growl, fiercer and deeper than be¬ 
fore was the only answer. Doctor Billy 
laughed as he came back to Sylvia. “ He’s 
not a real Ogre — you know that, don’t you, 
Princess? ” 


108 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ Course I do,” said Sylvia. “ I know he 
helped make me get well when I was sick, 
only I can’t remember very much about him 
then ’cause I had so many mixed-up dreams.” 

Presently the pudgy old doctor with his 
bald head and funny side whiskers shuffled 
down the stairs. He wore an old lounging 
robe and a pair of dilapidated velvet slippers. 
Those slippers had been the cause of many a 
domestic squabble, for when the old Doctor 
came home, after making sick calls, he put 
them on, even if there was a sure-enough 
dinner-party at the house and he had to wear 
them with his dress suit. Hannah had threat¬ 
ened many a time to destroy them; once she 
had even got them as far as the rag bag, but 
the old doctor had rescued them, and had been 
so disagreeable to everyone for days afterward, 
that no one had dared to touch them since. 

Now he stood with his hands behind his 
back, his lips pursed out, his shaggy gray eye¬ 
brows drawn into a fierce scowl above his keen 
blue eyes, and looked at Sylvia. 

“ Well, well, well,” he growled. “ So here’s 
the little girl from the Stubbles — I mean you 


The House of the Grouches 109 

used to be little! My, my, my, how fast you’re 
growing up. Humph! First thing we know 
you’ll be flirting a train behind you and wear¬ 
ing your hair up in an outlandish pug.” 

Sylvia, gazing up, not at the frown, but at 
the blue eyes beneath, smiled and was not in 
the least afraid. She made him a quaint little 
curtsy, and as she did so her little gurgle of a 
laugh bubbled forth. 

“ What are you laughing at? ” 

“ Because,” said Sylvia frankly, “ because 
you have such a funny growl — I never heard 
such a funny growl! You act as though you 
were unhappy. You’re not, are you? ” 

A tremor seemed to pass through the old 
doctor’s body; his face turned a deep red. 
His shaggy eyebrows went up and came fiercely 
down again. He looked as if he might be going 
to explode. “ Then I shan’t growl any more! ” 
he snapped out. “ I refuse to be considered 
funny.” 

Sylvia had not been in Doctor Billy’s house 
many hours before she plainly saw that there 
certainly was something decidedly out of kilter. 
The only cheerful person about the place 


110 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

seemed to be Hannah’s son, Tim, who worked 
in a hardware store down town, and helped 
about the house between times. He was a big, 
curly-haired boy with rosy cheeks and a merry 
whistle which the gloomy atmosphere of the 
place failed to diminish or discourage. 

The third night of Sylvia’s visit, she was 
awakened by the sound of Leah’s sobbing. She 
quietly crept out of her own bed and climbed 
in with Leah, and the “ Bad Girl ” gathered 
her close in her arms, and burying her face in 
the yellow curls wept heart-brokenly. Finally 
her sobs grew quiet. There was a silence of 
several moments, then, “ Honey, did you — 
did you — ever think anybody was awfully 
nice?” asked Leah, softly and hesitatingly. 

“ Oh, yes, lots of people,” replied Sylvia. 
“ The Lonely Lady, and Doctor Billy and the 
Poet and the Tweenies and — 

“No, I mean just one person — a man — 
did you ever think someone was nicer than any¬ 
body else? ” 

“ Of course I did,” said Sylvia, patting Leah 
gently, “ I think Daddy Jim is the very nicest 
man in the whole world.” 


The House of the Grouches 111 

“ Oh, but I mean somebody else — not your 
father. And when he didn’t speak to you or 
pay any attention to you, did you feel — oh, 
just weak and sick and tired all over? ” 

“ Why — no — replied Sylvia, frowning in 
the dark as she tried to remember, “ I don’t 
believe I ever felt that way. Did you? ” 

“Y— yes, I did — and I ain’t hungry at 
meal time — and I lie awake nights just thinkin’ 
and thinkin’. Oh, I’m so unhappy,” moaned 
Leah, muffling her sobs in the bed clothes. 

Sylvia patted her shoulder gently. “ Don’t 
cry, Leah, dear. What’s the matter, tell me, 
please. I thought you’d be so happy here.” 

“ I’d better stayed where I was,” sobbed 
Leah. “ Everybody thinks I’m bad anyway — 
they do.” 

“Nobody does!” whispered Sylvia indig¬ 
nantly. “ Doctor Billy doesn’t.” 

“Oh, don’t he? Are you sure?” exclaimed 
Leah joyfully. Then she added sadly, “ But 
Hannah does! An’—an’ she says I’ve no right 
to think of marrying a good man, either — I 
guess she’s right — but, oh, it’s so hard not to 
think of — of him.” 


112 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

Sylvia’s comforting little hands suddenly re¬ 
laxed their hold of Leah’s arm. She lay very 
still. Of course there was no need for her to 
ask with whom Leah was in love. And, of 
course, Leah couldn’t help it, and then, too, of 
course, she was really a good, kind girl. Doctor 
Billy himself had said so. The dark and quiet 
of the room seemed blacker and stiller than 
usual, and there was a sudden queer, tight feel¬ 
ing at Sylvia’s heart, but Leah must be com¬ 
forted. 

“Never mind, Leah, never mind what Han¬ 
nah says, if you want to marry him,” she said 
softly, and quite steadily, “you shall! — Of 
course you shall!” 

Leah shook her head on the pillow, but her 
sobs gradually ceased and she fell asleep long 
before her little bedfellow, who lay, staring into 
the darkness, planning how to “ make the way 
bright,” not daring to move for fear of waking 
her. 

The next evening Sylvia found Doctor Billy 
sitting alone by the fire in the big hall, leaning 
back in his chair, his eyes closed. The room 
was very dark except for the firelight. She 


The House of the Grouches 113 

stole up quietly and laid her hand softly on 
his arm. She had watched for just such a 
chance all day, but there had been someone 
else around every minute. 

“ I wonder if he’s asleep,” she whispered to 
herself, standing on tiptoe to peer into his 
eyes. They flew open so suddenly that Sylvia 
started. 

“Mercy sakes alive! What’s the matter, 
Princess?” exclaimed Doctor Billy in mock 
horror. “Trying to enchant me, or count my 
freckles or what? ” 

“No, Doctor Billy, I just want to ask you 
about something,” she said gravely, perching 
on the arm of the chair. 

Doctor Billy leaned forward, rumpling up 
his hair and striking an attitude of exaggerated 
attention. 

“Yes, Madam, what can I do for you — is 
your husband’s indigestion worse? Ah, I told 
you,” shaking an accusing forefinger under her 
nose, “ warned you, my good woman, if you 
would insist upon giving him lemon pie for 
supper— ” 

“ No,” said Sylvia, laughing in spite of her- 


114 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

self, and seizing his wagging finger, “ it isn’t 
my husband’s indigestion — it’s — ” 

“ Oh, then I suppose it’s your little boy’s 
sprained ankle,” shrugging his shoulders. “ You 
know boys will be b—” 

“ No, sir, it isn’t even my little boy’s sprained 
ankle, it’s — ” 

“ Oh, then surely, my dear woman, it must 
be one of your heart attacks. Now if it’s your 
heart, Madam — you know I specialize in—” 
“No, no — let me tell you,” cried Sylvia im¬ 
patiently. “ It’s about Leah. She’s just ter¬ 
ribly unhappy, and she can’t eat and she can’t 
sleep and she cries — ” 

“What!” exclaimed Doctor Billy, sitting up 
straight and looking grave. “Are you sure?” 

Sylvia nodded her head emphatically. “ Yes, 
I’m sure. She told me so, and besides, I heard 
her cry.” 

Doctor Billy shook his head thoughtfully. 
There was silence in the room for several sec¬ 
onds. Then Sylvia spoke again: 

“ Doctor Billy, you said you thought Leah 
was a good girl.” 

“Why, of course!” he replied. 


“I think 


The House of the Grouches 115 

she’s a wonderfully good girl, and very sweet 
and pretty. I really like her very much.” 

“ Then why don’t you marry her? ” 

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Doctor Billy so 
suddenly that Sylvia almost fell off the arm 
of the chair in an effort to put her hands over 
her ears. Daddy Jim had told her always to 
stop up her ears when any one talked bad talk. 

“ I beg your pardon,” said Doctor Billy 
apologetically, seating ber more firmly, “ but 
you are so — er — so startling, Sylvia. “Why 
should I marry Leah?” 

“ Because she’s in love with you.” 

Doctor Billy stared. “In love with me!” 

“ Um hm,” said Sylvia, nodding her head 
emphatically, “with you!” 

“Did she tell you, Sylvia?” 

“Well, she — she — why she said ‘I love 
him so,’ and that Han — and that everybody 
thought she was bad, and she’d better stayed 
where she was, and that Ha — that some folks 
said she’d no right to think of marrying a good 
man — who could she mean, but you, Doctor 
Billy?” 

He threw back his head and laughed heartily. 


116 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

u I’m afraid you’ve got it mapped out wrong 
this time, Princess. Have you thought that 
it might be somebody else — it might be Han¬ 
nah’s Tim, for instance.” 

It was Sylvia’s turn to stare. “Tim? — 
Tim?” It was funny she hadn’t thought of 
him at all. 

“ Well then, Doctor Billy, if Leah isn’t in 
love with you, are you — are you in love with 
anybody? ” 

“I certainly am!” he replied, chuckling. 

Sylvia gasped at his ready answer. 

“ With — the Lonely Lady? ” 

Doctor Billy looked very thoughtful. “ Well, 
she’s mighty lovely, isn’t she — don’t you think 
so, Princess Sylvia?” 

“Ye — s,” was the low reply. 

“ But,” he continued a bit doubtfully, “ I’m 
afraid she’s a little too old for me — ” 

“Why the Lonely Lady’s not old at all!” 
cried Sylvia in amazement. 

“ Oh, of course not,” admitted Doctor Billy, 
“ but the trouble is, I’m so terribly young! 
Didn’t you know that? Why really I’m noth¬ 
ing but a young fellow! I don’t believe my 


The House of the Grouches 117 

heart’s much older than yours. You see, it 
doesn’t make so very much difference how many 
years old you are by the clock or the calendar, 
if your heart hasn’t got all wrinkly and pinched 
and wizened, why you're not any older than 
your heart. Remember, I’ve been specializing 
in hearts, and I know. So don’t you forget, 
Princess, that with all my wisdom and dignity, 
I’m nothing but a young fellow! ” 

But Sylvia wasn’t so sure about Doctor Billy. 
He always joked when she wanted him to be 
serious, but he had at least admitted that he 
was in love with somebody. This love busi¬ 
ness, from what she had observed, was very 
queer and complicated, anyway. People cried 
when they ought to have laughed, and said no 
when they meant yes, and joked when you 
wanted them to be serious, and on the whole 
she couldn’t understand it at all. However, she 
meant to try to find out if she could, from Tim. 
It was a matter she wanted settled in her own 
mind. 


CHAPTER VII 


A Real Merry Christmas 

{ 

IM and Sylvia sat in the big kitchen 
alone, cracking nuts for to-morrow. 
To-morrow was Christmas, and 
Leah had made cake and pudding 
and candy and stuffed dates, and prepared 
— oh — all sorts of goodies. Hannah was lum¬ 
bering rheumatically from one task to another, 
Tim worked away in silence, but Sylvia sighed 
over the nuts. With all the preparation, there 
didn’t seem to be any real Christmas joy in 
the house. And there wasn’t to be any Christ¬ 
mas tree! Doctor Billy had wanted one for 
Sylvia, but old Doctor Bill said it was all 
folderol, and children were taught too much 
nonsense as it was. So Doctor Billy had bought 
just a tiny one for her to put in her room. 

Sylvia was in despair over this big, gloomy 

house. Hannah went about sulky and silent; 

118 




119 


A Real Merry Christmas 

Leah silent and sad; and even Tim, just now, 
was neither whistling nor teasing. Sylvia dared 
to break the silence only by a whisper. 

“ Mr. Tim, could you tell me what’s the 
matter with everybody in this house? It isn’t 
a bit like Christmas — even with all the good 
things to eat! ” 

“ How’s that? ” 

“ There isn’t anybody happy! ” wailed Sylvia, 
turning a distressed face toward Tim. 

“ Well, I suppose you’ve noticed I’m pinin’ 
away, too?” 

Sylvia crinkled up her eyes and gave a little 
chuckle. It was very funny to think of a big, 
rosy, good-natured Tim pining away. 

“ I think you’re the only jolly person about! ” 

“ Well, there’s where you’re all wrong! I 
try to conceal it, but I’m slowly dying of a 
broken heart! ” He rolled up his eyes and 
drew down the corners of his mouth. Sylvia 
laughed out loud. 

“ Fact! ” argued Tim. “ Just because I don’t 
go ’round with a long face, I never get any 
sympathy. But if you want to do a real kind¬ 
ness to somebody, find out why your friend, 


120 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

Leah, turns me down cold every day of my 
life! ” 

Sylvia stood up so suddenly that the nut 
shells clattered out of her lap onto Hannah’s 
clean floor. 

“Then it was you!” cried Sylvia. 

“What was me?” asked Tim, pulling one 
of her curls teasingly. 

“That she talked about in the night—I 
thought maybe she was in love with somebody 
else.” 

Tim caught Sylvia’s hands. “ You don’t say! 
Cross your heart. Sure you ain’t mistaken 
about that?” 

Sylvia shook her head vehemently. 

“ Well, then,” he said, with a twinkle in his 
eye as he suddenly sprang to his feet, “ I’m 
goin’ to ask her to marry me this very minute! ” 

But Sylvia caught him by the coat tail and 
pulled him back again. “ Wait a minute, you 
get so mixed up I can’t think!” she frowned. 

She was quiet for so long that Tim grew im¬ 
patient. “ Would you mind doing some o’ 
your thinkin’ out loud?” 

Sylvia shook her head. She had suddenly 


121 


A Real Merry Christmas 

remembered Leah’s words about Hannah. 
Hannah had said she ought never to think of 
marrying a good man! P’r’aps she meant Tim, 
after all, and not Doctor Billy. Hannah, then, 
good honest Hannah, was the cause of all the 
trouble! Still, she never knew whether Tim 
was joking or in earnest. She always had an 
uneasy feeling that he was having a jolly good 
time at her expense. Maybe he was only fool¬ 
ing about Leah. 

“ Please,” she said to Tim, “ please promise 
me you won’t say anything to Leah for a little 
while.” 

“ Why not? ” sputtered Tim. 

“ Because — not till I tell you. You see, 
Doctor Billy says I’m to cure the trouble in 
this house, and so I want to do it, and I don’t 
want you to spoil it by getting things all mixed 
up before it’s time.” 

Tim stared at her and grinned. “ All right,” 
he replied. “ Only whatever you’re going to 
do, for Pat’s sake — do quick!” 

Sylvia was so busy thinking all the rest of 
the day that the house was more quiet than 
ever. Late in the afternoon, old Dr. Lynn 


122 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

came home, weary from making sick calls. He 
mumbled to himself as he crossed the gloomy 
hall: “This is anything but a cheerful house, 
I must say.” But at the door of the library he 
stopped. His old slippers were toasting side 
by side before the fire; his evening paper lay 
beside his easy chair, and curled up in the chair, 
waiting for him, was Sylvia herself. 

He took out his handkerchief and blew his 
nose rather vigorously. Sylvia sprang up. 
“Oh, you scared me!” 

“I did — did I?” he growled, “Humph! 
You deserve to be scared! How’d I know you 
were there! — I hope you haven’t burned any 
holes in my slippers!” But as he put on the 
dilapidated old things, after carefully examin¬ 
ing them, he settled back in his chair, muttering 
“ Well, well, this is something like com¬ 
fort, eh? ” 

For a moment he gazed at Sylvia from under 
his shaggy brows. Then suddenly he reached 
into his pocket and drew out a little box. 
“ Come here! ” he commanded abruptly. “ You 
know I don’t believe in Christmas presents — 
they’re all nonsense! This isn’t a Christmas 


123 


A Real Merry Christmas 

present, you understand. It just reminded me 
of you, someway, so I bought it.” He took 
from the box a beautiful ring set with a tiny 
sparkling diamond, and slipped it onto Sylvia’s 
finger. 

With a joyous cry she climbed up his lap 
and gave him such a big bear-hug that he 
sputtered and coughed and scolded. But he 
let her stay on his knee, and as he looked into 
the glowing, crackling fire, his eyes grew misty 
with the pain and pleasure of old memories. 
The quiet lasted for several moments. Sylvia’s 
arm stole up around the old doctor’s neck and 
as he gazed down at her with a reminiscent 
look he absent-mindedly patted the golden 
head. 

“ I had a little girl once,” he began in a 
far-away voice. Then he stopped abruptly. 

“ Please tell me about her,” said Sylvia 
softly. 

He was silent. 

“ I’d like to hear about your little girl,” she 
ventured again. 

“ But I wouldn’t like to talk about her — so 
there! And you can keep quiet or you’ll have 


124 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

to get down off my lap! ” he added gruffly. 

Sylvia looked up, hurt and surprised. She 
was not accustomed to being spoken to harshly. 
When Daddy Jim reprimanded her he did so 
firmly and gravely — but not like this. 

She was very still for a few moments while 
the old doctor shifted his position uneasily. 

“ There, there, child,” he muttered at last. 
“ I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. You’ll 
forgive a cross old man, won’t you — a cross 
old doctor who’s lost his own little girl?” 

Sylvia nodded. “ O’ course,” she said 
gravely, “ I’m sorry for you and o’ course I’ll 
forgive you. Everybody ought to forgive 
everybody else — ’specially on Christmas eve.” 
She cuddled quietly against his shoulder. 

“ A penny for your thoughts, young lady,” 
said the old doctor. 

“ Why,” said Sylvia, brightening. “ I was 
just thinking—I wanted — I wish — you see, 
I thought — wouldn’t it be nice if I could bring 
my little tree down to the kitchen! It would 
make it seem more Christmassy — and every¬ 
body could give everybody else some little teeny 
weeny bit of a present. 


A Real Merry Christmas 125 

“Christmas tree in the kitchen!” bellowed 
the doctor, who had listened beautifully up to 
this point, “ indeed not! We’ll have no Christ¬ 
mas tree in the kitchen! Who ever heard of 
such a thing! A Christmas tree in the kitchen, 
getting pine needles into the dinner! No, I 
say. If we’re going to have a tree, we’ll have 
a real one — out in the hall, with all the fix¬ 
ings, eh? ” 

“Goody, could we?’” Sylvia clapped her 
hands gleefully. And then they put their heads 
together and were so deep in plans for the 
morrow that they failed to hear Hannah’s voice 
as she announced dinner. 

“ There’s that old tyrant now! ” growled the 
doctor as she came to the door and called them 
a second time. “ I’ll tell you, young lady, if 
she doesn’t do what you want her to, I’ll take 
her in hand. She’s ruled me for twenty years, 
and it’s time I had something to say about 
things in my own house! ” 

That evening when old Dr. Lynn had 
gone out to see about the tree, for he insisted 
on attending to it himself, and everybody else 
in the household was busy, Sylvia stole down 


126 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

to Hannah’s room, where they had agreed to 
tell each other stories, just as Sylvia and Daddy 
Jim always did on Christmas Eve. Sylvia’s 
cheeks were flushed with excitement, her eyes 
like two stars, and Hannah couldn’t help kiss¬ 
ing her as she sat in Tim’s little chair. 

“ It does seem good to have a child about 
the place, Honey. It’s been a long time since 
there was one. What this old house needs is 
children and a mistress, and I, for one, hope 
Doctor Billy gets married pretty soon. He 
better watch out or first thing he knows he’ll be 
an old bachelor. Now if only Miss 
Margey—” She sighed and was silent. 

“ Who is Miss Margey? ” asked Sylvia. 

“ Haven’t you never heard of Margey? But 
I s’pose not. The old doctor never mentions 
her name, and Doctor Billy was too young to 
remember much about it,” said Hannah. 

“ Well, Margey was Doctor Billy’s sister, 
but she was ten years older, and a sweeter, 
prettier little thing you never saw!” Hannah 
was silent as she gazed thoughtfully into space. 

“ Go on,” said Sylvia. “ Tell me about her.” 

“ Well,” continued Hannah, “ Dr. Lynn 


A Real Merry Christmas 127 

spoiled her after her mother died. He couldn’t 
stand her out o’ his sight.” Another pause. 
“ She was a wilful child, though, and would 
have her own way about everything.” 

“ Did she — die?” asked Sylvia. 

“ No—she didn’t die. Leastwise, not that 
I ever heard of. But she’d almost better of.” 
Hannah paused reflectively. 

“ Oh, do hurry and tell me what became of 
her,” said Sylvia, drawing her stool closer. 

“ Well, she fell in love with a big, dark, 
handsome fellow who was wild and no-account. 
Old Dr. Lynn wouldn’t allow ’im on the 
place or let Margey have anything to do with 
’im. Then, one day ” — Hannah lowered her 
voice — “Margey went out for a walk, and 
when she came back she had this big, good-for- 
nothing with her, and she said they was mar¬ 
ried. My! my! I’ll never forget that day. I 
was in the kitchen peaceably gettin’ supper and 
singin’, ‘ Sweet Peace the Gift o’ God’s Love ’ 
— yes sir, that’s the very song I was singin’ — 
1 Sweet Peace, the Gift o’ God’s Love.’ I’ve 
never sung it since. And just then I heard a 
terrible noise, as if the library was failin’ down 


128 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

about our ears. I ran to the library, and there 
I saw the old doctor, throwin’ the furniture 
and yellin’ like a madman. An’ over in one 
corner was Margery, white as a sheet an’ the 
scairtest lookin’ mortal you ever see, dingin’ 
to that big black fellow.” 

Hannah covered her face with her hands 
and rocked back and forth in her chair for a 
moment. Then she resumed her story. “ Oh, 
the way old Dr. Lynn talked to them two 
was terrible — ter-ri-ble. He raved and swore 
and told ’em to get out o’ his house an’ never 
to come back, an’ that he never wanted to hear 
their names again. 

“ The girl flared up then. She had some of 
her dad’s temper, though she was mostly like 
her mother. 

“ ‘ We’ll go, sir,’ she says. ‘ An’ you needn’t 
never fear that we’ll ever bother you again, 
sir!’ An’ they never did. The old house has 
never been the same since that day to this — 
and neither has the old doctor.” 

Sylvia gazed at Hannah in wide-eyed won¬ 
der. “ Her own father said that — told her he 
never wanted to see her again!” 


A Real Merry Christmas 129 

Hanna nodded her head. “ Yes, he done just 
that.” 

“ But if she should come back again, wouldn’t 
her father forgive her? ” 

“ No,” said Hannah shortly, “ the old doctor 
never forgives!” 

“ Oh, but that’s terrible — and wicked — 
never to forgive! Isn’t it, don’t you think so? ” 

“I — I — s’pose mebbe it is,” said Hannah, 
feeling that it was time to change the subject. 
“ Now you tell your story, Miss Sylvia, I’ve 
told mine.” 

Then Sylvia cuddled her head against Han¬ 
nah’s knee and, with that intuitive diplomacy 
which at times so amazed Doctor Billy, told 
the story of Leah — only she did not call her 
Leah, but “ the Big Girl.” She told of the ugly 
shack built into the side of the hill; of the 
cruel, dark fellow; of Leah’s capturing the 
white butterfly; of the girl’s first lonely days 
at school; of the ride through the rainy Novem¬ 
ber night and the old man’s plea for his grand¬ 
daughter; and last, of the tender, loving care 
she had given Sylvia through her illness. 

And Hannah, with tears streaming down her 


130 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

round cheeks, lifted Sylvia onto her motherly 
lap and kissed her. “You blessed baby!” — 
she had already guessed the “ Big Girl’s” iden¬ 
tity— “I s’pose I oughtn’t to blame the girl 
for her folks’ meanness — An’ it is terrible to 
get hard an’ unforgivin’ like the old doctor — ” 
“But he isn’t all hard, Hannah!” cried 
Sylvia. “ I know he’s got some little soft spots, 
’cause he’s going to let us have a Christmas tree 

— a big one out in the hall with presents and 
things — honest he is!” 

Hannah stared. “ Not really? ” 

“ Really and truly. Leah’s fixing some of the 
things now in her room — we’re going to have 
some little teeny weeny present for every single 
person there.” 

“ But I haven’t any present for — for her — 
Leah,” said Hannah contritely. “ I’ve been sort 
of — you know, sort of mean and small, thinkin’ 
just because all her folks were rapscallions that 
she wasn’t fit for decent folks to associate with 

— and I wasn’t goin’ to give her a present.” 
Sylvia’s arms went around Hannah’s neck, 

and looking into the old face with a wistful 
little smile she whispered, “ I know the loveliest 


A Real Merry Christmas 131 

present you could give her, and it would make 
her so happy! ” 

“What, dearie?” 

“ Tim.” 

A little frown crept between Hannah’s eyes. 

“ Tim! ” she exclaimed. “ Oh, dearie me, oh 
dearie me! What is the world a cornin’ to when 
young snips like you start a match makin’!” 
And she lifted Sylvia up into her lap and 
smothered her with kisses. 

The next day was the happiest Christmas the 
old house had known in many a year. Sylvia 
flew about like a traditional kind Christmas 
fairy; the old doctor never growled a single 
growl, though many times during the day his 
old eyes wore a far-away expression as though 
he missed some one in the household; Tim sang 
and whistled and cracked jokes, and Leah 
seemed happy in her quiet way. Hannah 
beamed on everybody. Doctor Billy was a most 
jovial and efficient Santa Claus, decked out with 
a white beard and red, fur-trimmed costume, 
padded out with sofa pillows which persisted in 
slipping out of place and making queer humps 
and bumps at most unexpected parts of his 


132 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

anatomy. But that only added to the general 
merriment. 

“ Dad slipped one over on me/’ he said jok¬ 
ingly as he and Sylvia sat before the fire late 
in the afternoon when the fun had subsided. 
“ I always wanted to be the chap to give you 
your first diamond, Princess.” 

And Sylvia slipped her fingers into his and 
whispered, “ Never mind, Doctor Billy, I think 
p’raps he was pretendin’ I was his little girl — 
I mean the one he lost.” 

Doctor Billy gave her a startled look. “ Who 
spoke to you of his little girl, Sylvia? ” 

“ He did, first,” she replied. 

“He did!” he exclaimed in surprise. “He 
did!” And then Doctor Billy did something 
very unexpected. He buried his face in Sylvia’s 
sunny hair and she felt a tear—it must have 
been a tear — trickle down her neck. She 
looked up in surprise, but he was vigorously 
mopping his face with his handkerchief, and 
all he said was, “ I tell you, Princess, those curls 
of yours tickle a fellow’s nose like everything.” 

But when, after supper, he drove back to the 
Stubbles and left Sylvia in the lovely new fur 


A Real Merry Christmas 133 

coat and muff and cap that he had given her, 
Doctor Billy said, “ Daddy Jim, many thanks 
for your little girl. It would be a lucky family 
that could have her always. They’d never need 
any other doctor.” 

Daddy Jim had looked grave when Sylvia 
delightedly exhibited the beautiful fur coat and 
cap and muff Doctor Billy had given her. 

“ What’s the matter, Daddy, don’t you like 
them? ” she asked disappointedly. “ I just love 
them — the dear, soft, furry things,” laying her 
cheek against the muff. 

“ They’re very beautiful, Sylvia. They must 
have cost a great deal of money — far more 
money than Daddy Jim could afford to spend, 
even for the dearest little daughter in the 
world.” 

“Yes, but Doctor Billy gave them to me, 
Daddy, gave them — you don’t have to pay for 
them.” 

Daddy Jim shook his head doubtfully. 
“That’s just the point, dear; the Stubbles folks 
won’t know that the beautiful coat and muff and 
cap were presents, and they’ll wonder— at least 
I’m afraid they might — how a poor man like 


134 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

your Daddy Jim could let his little girl wear 
such costly things.” 

“ But couldn’t we tell them? ” 

“ You don’t understand, Sylvia. When you 
are older you will. You see, dear, sometimes 
people judge a man by what they do not know 
about him, rather than by what they do know — 
and their judgment is not always kind. The 
people here at the Stubbles do not know very 
much about us — you and me.” 

Sylvia looked puzzled. “ But you’ll let me 
wear them, won’t you Daddy dear, ’cause they 
feel just like Minerva, they’re so warm and 
soft?” 

And Daddy Jim took the rosy, fur-clad little 
figure into his arms and with the tender weak¬ 
ness of daddy-kind the world over, said, “ Well, 
if it’s going to make my little girl very, very 
happy to wear them, why I suppose she may.” 

And so, during the rest of the cold, snowy 
winter, Sylvia went about the Stubbles like a 
roly poly brown little cub, in the fur suit Dr. 
Billy had given her. 


CHAPTER VIII 


Daddy Jim’s First Deputy 

PRING had come again to the Stub¬ 
bles. Not that it made much differ¬ 
ence, as far as appearances were 
concerned, for all seasons looked 
more or less alike in the desolate little hollow; 
but now Daddy Jim was out in the fields nearly 
all day — that is, when he was not busy trying 
to make the Stubbles a good place to live in; 
for thieving and the selling of unlawful drinks, 
which had stopped for a while with the expul¬ 
sion of the Warrens, had begun again. Some 
said the younger Warrens had returned and 
were back at their old tricks. Only this time, 
if they were back, they remained very carefully 
hidden. It was difficult for Daddy Jim to 
locate the trouble. It seemed to be everywhere. 

There was one place, though, that he strongly 

suspected. It was the old Jones house a mile 

13S 




136 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

down the road. The Joneses no longer lived 
there, however. 

They had moved away several months ago, 
soon after Sylvia had recovered from her ill¬ 
ness. Mrs. Jones had acted very strangely when 
Doctor Billy had dropped in one day on his 
Christmas vacation, for a friendly little call to 
see how the “ Butterfly Baby,” as he called the 
little fellow, was getting along. And when, one 
morning, shortly after that, Sylvia had skipped 
over to the Jones cottage with a big soft ball 
she had crocheted from blue yarn for the baby, 
she had found the house closed up, and the 
family gone — no one knew where. 

But though the house was supposed to be 
empty, its windows nailed up, the yard full of 
weeds and the outbuildings tumbling into 
decay, several persons, passing by late at night, 
declared they had seen a light moving about 
inside, and the boys and girls at school called 
it the “ Haunted House.” 

Daddy Jim, however, thought he knew by 
what it was haunted. Once, on the road, he had 
met Granny Evans’ son, Al, staggering along 
from that direction. Al was not very bright, 


Daddy Jim s First Deputy 137 

but he was poor old Granny’s only support, and 
he had been losing all the wages he made at the 
elevator, besides being unable to work much of 
the time. Granny, who was Sylvia’s nearest 
neighbor, living just across the road at the foot 
of the hill, often came into the kitchen of the 
Little Gray House, and sat weeping by the fire, 
while she let her own fire go out to save fuel. 

Unable to get A1 to tell where he had been, 
or what he had done with his money, Daddy 
Jim had gone on down the road to the 
“ Haunted House,” but all was still and 
deserted. 

One night, though, he followed A1 and saw 
him turn into the Jones place. But when 
Daddy Jim crept up and peered through a 
crack in the boarded-up windows he could see 
nothing at all. He walked around the house 
and out to the stable. He could find no one; 
yet he knew that A1 must be somewhere about, 
and there were probably many others there. 
He determined to get the neighbors to help 
him, and to surround the place. But the neigh¬ 
bors were very busy at this season of the year, 
and it was several weeks before they could get 


138 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

together. He was sure now, however, that the 
hiding place was in the cellar of the old Jones 
house. 

On the evening planned for the “ raid,” 
Daddy Jim told Sylvia to run over and stay 
with Granny Evans until he came for her. 
Sylvia would have much preferred to visit the 
Lonely Lady, who would have let her play 
“ lady ” and dress up in her pretty silk and 
velvet gowns, with the dainty slippers to match, 
or play milliner with the row of flower-and- 
feather trimmed hats that Sylvia so loved to 
try on her own sunny curls. But the Lonely 
Lady was staying with Mrs. Tweenie that eve¬ 
ning, trying to entertain eight well Tweenies 
and keep them quiet, while their mother cared 
for the ninth, who was screaming with earache. 

So, after Daddy Jim had gone, Sylvia, very 
much excited, ran across the road to stay with 
Granny Evans, who was probably nervous and 
frightened. But the little two-roomed house 
with its lean-to kitchen was deserted. Granny 
had fled up the hill to stay with Mrs. Leary, 
the Lonely Lady’s cook. 

Sylvia sat down to wait. She thought Granny 


Daddy Jim s First Deputy 139 

would surely be back any minute. But the 
minutes slipped away, and she grew lonely, with 
only the shadows for company. She lighted the 
candle on the little center-table and took from 
the lower shelf the big photograph album with 
which Granny Evans always entertained her 
youthful callers. But to-night even the quaint 
pictures of meek-looking ladies with “ spit 
curls ” and bustles, and sanctimonious-appearing 
children in low-necked, short-sleeved dresses 
with “ mitts ” and pantalettes, who usually 
proved so fascinating to Sylvia, failed to hold 
her attention. She wished Granny Evans would 
come. She hoped they’d get the bad men so 
that A1 wouldn’t spend his money any more. 
She hoped — oh, how she hoped — that nothing 
would happen to Daddy Jim! She closed her 
eyes to shut out the sight of him. Perhaps if 
she prayed, real hard — 

The old screechy gate, out in front, clicked 
suddenly. Heavy feet were running past the 
window, stumbling up the back steps. The door 
of the lean-to kitchen was pushed open, closed 
again, then there was the sound of heavy, pain¬ 
ful breathing. 


140 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

Sylvia’s eyes opened wide with terror. It 
couldn’t be Granny — it had come too fast for 
her. Was it A1 — or Daddy Jim? 

She seized the candle and ran into the 
kitchen. Out of the weird shadows a big, black 
figure loomed, leaning exhausted against the 
door. He stared at the child as though he did 
not think she could be real. Then he muttered 
thickly, “ Are you alone here, girl? ” 

Sylvia nodded. “ Oh, are you hurt? ” she 
cried anxiously, forgetting her fear for a 
moment. The man, half crouching by the 
kitchen table, was holding one hand tightly with 
the other and breathing hard. 

“ It’s nothing much — I caught it on a 
barbed wire.” 

Sylvia came a little nearer, holding the candle 
so that it lighted his dark face. Her eyes 
dilated with wonder. “ Why, it’s the Jones 
baby’s father!” 

And the man, staring back at her, exclaimed 
also — with a smothered exclamation, “The 
little Butterfly girl that saved my baby! ” 

“No — I didn’t — it was Doctor Billy,” cor¬ 
rected Sylvia. “ But what made you go away? ” 


Daddy Jim s First Deputy 141 

The man muttered something under his 
breath. Then he turned his head quickly, as 
though listening. From down the road Sylvia 
heard a shout, answered by another, then her 
ears caught the staccato sound of horses’ hoofs 
on the hard road. 

“ Quick! ” said the man. “ Hide me! Some¬ 
where — anywhere — for my little boy’s sake! ” 

But Sylvia stood petrified. “Oh, I can’t — 
I can’t — you — you are'one of those—those 
bad men! ” 

“ No! ” he ejaculated. “ I’m not bad! I had 
to make a living somehow for her and for the 
boy — my baby. I couldn’t make the old place 
pay — and there was a mortgage — ” 

The clatter of the horses’ hoofs grew nearer 
and nearer. They stopped in front of the 
house. A jumble of voices floated into the little 
kitchen. 

“ Blow out that light! ” hissed the man with 
a sudden change of manner. He took a quick 
step toward her, his hands out as though to force 
her into silence. Suddenly he stopped. “ I 
can’t do it—I can’t hurt you after what you 
did for us! — I guess the jig’s up — I wish she 


142 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

didn’t have to know. She’s suffered so much 
because of me, an’ she thinks I’ve been living 
straight—I had — till now. This’ll kill her! 
And the boy—” He covered his face with his 
hands and crouched still nearer to the floor. 

Footsteps sounded on the gravel walk. The 
gate clicked. Sylvia stood still. She heard the 
men calling to each other as they searched the 
yard. The dejected figure at her feet was 
writhing from side to side as if in agony, and 
her own heart was pounding like a trip ham¬ 
mer. Suddenly something that Daddy Jim had 
said to her when he had first been made con¬ 
stable, and was showing her his bright new 
badge flashed into her mind: “You’ll be my 
first deputy, Sylvia. We’ll have to stand for 
law and order and peace at the Stubbles, now. 
Remember that, dear — law — and order — 
and peace.” 

She could not be disloyal to Daddy Jim, or 
to her duty as first deputy! — And then, she 
thought of that pale, sad-eyed little woman she 
had seen bending over the white, sick baby on 
that summer day so long ago. 

f 

A knock sounded on the front door, which 


Daddy Jim's First Deputy 143 

was locked, and Daddy Jim’s voice called, 
“ Mrs. Evans! Oh, Mrs. Evans — this is Jim 
Gray. Won’t you let me in a moment, please? ” 

Sylvia took a step toward the door, her heart 
beating painfully. Then she looked at the 
man’s figure, his big shoulders shaking with 
noiseless sobs, his face covered with his blood¬ 
stained fingers. 

Daddy Jim would have to put him in prison 
— and then what would become of the little 
Jones baby? 

Again a knock sounded at the door—three 
sharp, distinct raps. 

Sylvia ran to the man. “ Will you promise 
never, never to be bad any more?” she asked, 
her lips close to his ear. 

He did not lift his head, but answered 
wearily, “Yes, please God! But that don’t 
matter now. It’s too late. It’s them I’m 
thinking of—” 

Once more the knock sounded persistently 
and Daddy Jim’s voice again, “Mrs. Evans!” 

“ Hurry! Hurry! ” whispered Sylvia, point¬ 
ing to Al’s cot in the corner of the kitchen. 
“ Cover up — in there — quick! ” 


144 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

The man gave her one searching glance with 
his fierce dark eyes, and obeyed dumbly, as 
Sylvia ran into the other room and opened the 
door. 

“ Why Sylvia! ” exclaimed Daddy Jim, when 
he saw her white, frightened face. Then, as the 
candle, falling from her trembling fingers, 
sputtered and went out, she threw herself, 
weeping, into his arms. 

“ Why, what is it, Daddy’s little girl? You’re - 
shaking like a leaf. Did I frighten you? 
Where’s Granny?” 

“ She — she isn’t here, Daddy,” said Sylvia 
between breathless sobs. “ I’ve been here all 
alone — all the evening. I—” 

“ Why, Daddy is so sorry. He wouldn’t have 
had you here alone, for anything, if he had 
only known.” 

He had found the candle, and lighting it 
again, placed it on the table. “ There was a 
man escaped. We thought he came this way, 
and maybe Granny might have heard him. 
Don’t be frightened, dear,” he added, for 
Sylvia’s chin was quivering and he felt her soft 
little body trembling violently as she clung 


Daddy Jim's First Deputy 145 

tightly to his arm. She had never had to 
deceive him about anything in her life before. 

“ I’m all right now, Daddy Jim,” she said at 
length. “ Please go and take the men away. 
They make so much noise, hollering to each 
other — and they’ll never, never find the man, 
staying out there.” 

“ I guess you’re right, dear. I’ll tell them 
what to do and then I’ll come straight back and 
take you home.” And Daddy Jim went out. 

Sylvia waited a moment after he had gone. 
Then she ran into the kitchen. “Quick! 
They’re all out in front now. They won’t see 
you if you climb the back fence and go ’round 
the hill. Quick! Daddy Jim’ll be back in a 
minute! ” 

The man hesitated. “So you are the sheriff’s 
little girl? ” 

She nodded. 

He held out his hand to her — his left one, 
for the right was torn and bleeding. “ God 
bless you! — I won’t forget what you have done 
for us! ” 

And the door closed noiselessly behind him as 
he slipped out into the blackness of the night. 


CHAPTER IX 


Leah’s Hour of Trial 

YLVIA was lonely and troubled that 
summer vacation. She missed 
Doctor Billy’s cheerful daily calls, 
but he was “ working like a beaver, 
sawing bones,” as he said. Doctor Billy, who 
had graduated from medical college, was serv¬ 
ing his term of interneship at the hospital at 
Fairmont, called “ St. Luke’s ” in memory of the 
Poet, and except for his occasional “ free ” after¬ 
noons or evenings when he drove out to the 
Stubbles, they saw little of him. But Doctor 
Billy was not the only one Sylvia missed. She 
longed sadly for the Poet. He had been such a 
helpful friend, always. To him she had been in 
the habit of taking her childish troubles when 
Daddy Jim was too busy, always sure of a bit 
of comforting philosophy or advice, fantastic 
though it might be. And Daddy Jim was busy 
indeed these days. Somehow, to Sylvia he had 




147 


Leah's Hour of Trial 

seemed quiet and worried about something 
lately; but when she had slipped her arm lov¬ 
ingly around his neck and asked him if there 
was something bothering him, he had forced a 
smile and told her that she must have imagined 
the worried look. 

But Sylvia was quite sure that she hadn’t 
imagined it. At first she had told herself it 
was because he was a Prince in Disguise, but 
she had begun to question if a Prince really 
would wear in his eyes the look that Daddy 
Jim so often wore of late. Nor could she quite 
forget the strained, hunted expression that had 
darted across his face when Harry Warren had 
snarled at him in the tumbledown shack that 
rainy night so long ago: “ Who’re you to be 
sayin’ who’s good’n who’s bad! Who knows 
anything about you?” 

She couldn’t help remembering, either, what 
he had said about the Dragon — that he had 
often felt its fiery breath. Surely if he were a 
Prince he could easily have slain the Dragon 
when it came so near. 

Then, too, she was worried about the affair 
that had taken place at Granny Evans’ the night 


148 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

of the raid on the old Jones place. For though 7 
the tumbledown little place was no longer 
used, the trouble had not stopped and A1 was 
still losing his money. Poor Granny would not 
have had enough to live on were it not for 
Sylvia and the Lonely Lady, who brought her 
many a gift of food and clothing. Sylvia felt 
heavily responsible for all the trouble because 
she had let the Jones baby’s father escape. She 
had confessed the whole affair to Daddy Jim 
that night, tearfully resigning her position as 
First Deputy, and he had tried to console her 
though he could not conceal his disappointment 
and anxiety. 

“ You were right about Leah, dear, but I’m 
afraid you are wrong this time. You should 
have left it for me to decide.” 

“ But, Daddy, you would have had to send 
him to jail because you’re marshal. And there 
were all the other men — and oh, he was cry¬ 
ing about his little boy and poor Mrs. Jones — 
and his hand was all covered with blood! 
Maybe he will be good now, Daddy Jim.” 

Daddy Jim was very doubtful, but he told 
Sylvia not to worry any more. However, she 


149 


Leah’s Hour of Trial 

could not help worrying, when almost every 
day Daddy Jim was getting strange letters 
addressed in queer, sprawling handwriting, tell¬ 
ing him that if he didn’t quit looking for 
trouble he’d find it — bigger trouble than he’d 
bargained for. The letters were misspelled 
and unsigned and Daddy Jim only laughed at 
them, tossing them into the coal scuttle where 
Sylvia found the crumpled sheets and puzzled 
much over them. She even showed one to 
Leah, whom Doctor Billy had brought out in his 
car one of his free evenings. Leah’s face had 
suddenly gone very white and she had given a 
queer little gasp. When Sylvia had asked her 
what was the matter she had only shaken her 
head; but later, as she was leaving, she had 
looked at Daddy Jim with her grave dark eyes 
and said pleadingly, “ Please, Mister Gray, be 
very careful, won’t you?” Daddy Jim had 
laughed and promised, but he had gone right 
on “ looking for trouble.” 

On this particular sunny afternoon Sylvia 
was trying to get these unpleasant thoughts out 
of her mind as she wandered along the marshy 
creek-bank looking for a certain kind of little 


150 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

blue wild flower. She went farther and farther 
in her search, longing for the Poet, who always 
used to go flower-gathering with her. He had 
never failed to find the shy, elusive little wild 
things that were so rare at the Stubbles. They 
had seemed to spring up to meet him. 

“ It is because they know I am their brother 
and will not harm them,” he used to say. He 
never picked any for himself — except the 
white rose for his button-hole — but he used to 
let Sylvia gather them. “You are the Queen 
of all the flowers, and they must die for you 
when you so desire,” he used to say. 

But this philosophy had so affected Sylvia 
that she never picked any unless for someone 
who was ill or sad, and that was why she was 
searching for the little blue flowerets to take to 
Granny Evans. Without finding any she had 
gone farther than she had realized. It must be 
late, she thought, for the sun was getting low. 
She would have to hurry home for she wanted 
to have piping hot muffins for Daddy Jim’s 
supper — the kind the Lonely Lady had taught 
her how to make — they took one egg and two 
cups of flour. 


151 


Leah's Hour of Trial 

A voice suddenly called from behind a bush 
and a rough-looking man stepped out in front 
of her, holding a horse by the bridle. “ Are 
you Jim Gray’s girl?” he asked. 

Sylvia nodded, too startled, for the moment, 
to speak. 

“ Then you are to come with me. Your 
father has been — hurt! ” 

Sylvia stood very still. Everything seemed 
to grow black before her eyes. She heard, as 
in a dream, a wood-dove in the near-by patch 
of trees, calling its plaintive, mournful cry. 
The little basket she had brought to hold the 
flowers dropped from her limp fingers. She 
staggered forward to pick it up. 

“Come!” said the man, and his gruff voice 
broke in rudely upon the stillness of the place. 

“We must hurry!” He seized Sylvia and 
roughly placing her upon the horse, sprang into 
the saddle behind her. 

Two or three hours later the telephone at 
Dr. Lynn’s rang violently. Leah answered, and 
a deep voice that trembled strangely asked for 
Doctor Billy. Leah recognized it as Daddy 
Jim’s voice. It was Doctor Billy’s “ free ” after- 


152 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

noon, she told him, and he had driven with his 
father twenty miles into the country in the oppo¬ 
site direction to visit one of the old doctor’s 
patients — a case of unusual interest. 

“ Is anything the matter? ” she asked 
anxiously. 

“ Sylvia! ” came back the answer, and Leah’s 
heart seemed to stop beating at his reply. 

“ I came in about an hour ago, but she was 
nowhere about, though it was supper time, and 
she is usually very prompt. I found a note — 
another one of those notes — fastened to the 
screen door in the kitchen. It said unless I 
packed up and left the Stubbles immediately, 
and promised not to return, I would ” — the 
deep voice trembled — “ never see my little 
girl again.” 

“Oh!” groaned Leah, under her breath, 
swaying against the wall. 

“ Of course it’s all bluff,” he continued, “ but 
I’m really worried about Sylvia. I’ve looked 
everywhere about here. I thought perhaps the 
doctor had taken her for a ride — or some¬ 
thing? ” He paused hopefully. 

“ No,” replied Leah weakly, “ they’ve been 


Leah’s Hour of Trial 153 

gone all the afternoon — to a place over near 
Centerville.” 

“ Then I’ll keep on looking— I haven’t been 
to the Tweenies yet. She’s surely some place 
near. It’s — it’s too impossible!” 

Leah’s hand was trembling so she could 
scarcely hold the receiver to her ear. “ If you 
don’t find her — will you — will you let me 
know before midnight — or if you do—” 

“ Yes, yes indeed. I surely will,” Daddy Jim 
promised. Leah climbed the stairs to her room, 
holding tightly to the banister as she went. 

In the hall above she met Hannah. “ What’s 
the matter, Leah — you’re white as a ghost. 
Are you sick? ” she asked anxiously. 

Leah did not tell her of Daddy Jim’s mes¬ 
sage; forcing a smile she shook her head and 
hurried to her room, locking the door behind 
her. 

Alone in the darkness she sat, staring from 
the window, starting at every sound. Then she 
lighted a lamp and took from her dress a letter 
she had received that morning. It was written 
in a scrawly, ugly hand, and the paper was 
crumpled and soiled. She scanned the blurred 


154 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

lines breathlessly and fearfully by the dim 
light; then she re-read parts of it: 

“ You didn’t really think you was goin’ to get 
away from me, did you — an’ you better not try 
marryin’ that pink-faced boob you been runnin’ 
around with, or that snob of a doctor chap I 
seen you drivin’ with if you don’t want some¬ 
thing terrible to happen to them. . . . You 

know me. ... If ever you peep you can 
expect something to happen to some of your 
other friends, too — and if anything should ac¬ 
cidentally happen, you know where to find me 
. . . you might have some influence, you 

know.” 

Crushing the note between her fingers, Leah 
dropped her head upon her arm on the window¬ 
sill. “Oh dear, oh dear! What shall I do?” 
she sobbed. 

For several moments she sat there, her jum¬ 
bled thoughts whirling at maddening speed. 
Then she arose, took from her dresser a photo¬ 
graph and pressed it to her lips. “No, no,” 
she cried passionately, “ I can’t do it--I can’t 
— I can’t.” 

At midnight nothing had been found of 


155 


Leah’s Hour of Trial 

Sylvia. When Doctor Billy and his father came 
home late that night, they had found Leah, 
white faced and trembling, sitting up in the liv¬ 
ing room waiting for them. Doctor Billy, with¬ 
out waiting for any more than the news she had 
to impart, had, with a white, set face, driven off, 
“ to hunt for Sylvia until I find her,” he had 
said. 

At daybreak Daddy Jim came back to the 
Little Gray House at the foot of the hill, and 
sank into a chair, weary and heart-sick from his 
futile search. 

At the sound of a woman’s quick, light step 
on the porch outside, he lifted his head and 
listened. Holding with one hand to the chair 
he rose unsteadily to his feet as the Lonely 
Lady came quietly into the room. Her tender 
eyes mutely asked the question her lips were 
afraid to form. 

Daddy Jim shook his head. “Nothing — 
nothing at all! ” 

“ Please sit down,” said she, laying her hand 
gently on his arm. “ I’m going to make you 
a cup of coffee — no, don’t say anything! Just 
be good and drink it. It will do you good.” 


156 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

Mr. Gray, in a dazed sort of way, silently 
watched the slender, graceful figure stepping 
quietly about the little kitchen preparing the 
fragrant drink. There was the sound of crunch¬ 
ing gravel outside, and again footsteps on the 
little front porch. The door opened and Doctor 
Billy entered. He was dusty and disheveled, 
and his gay voice and smile were but masks to 
hide his own fear and heart-ache. 

“ Coffee! ” he called cheerfully, sniffing with 
his head thrown back, “ I smelled it and 
couldn’t get by. Please could you give a poor 
beggar a cup? ” 

“ Yes, indeed!” smiled the Lonely Lady as 
she handed him a cup of the steaming brown 
liquid. “ You sit right down here and rest. 
You’re both tired to death, and a little rest and 
this hot drink is what you need.” 

Doctor Billy was just lifting the cup to his 
lips when his eyes fell upon a pair of Sylvia’s 
slippers, lying side by side in the corner where 
she had put them. He choked suddenly, mut¬ 
tered something about the coffee being hot, and 
put the cup down on the table. But when 
Daddy Jim was not looking he picked up one 


Leah's Hour of Trial 157 

of the stubbed tan little things and dropped it 
into his pocket. 

There was a moment of forlorn silence in the 
little kitchen, a silence broken only by the 
rhythmic tick, tick, tick of the clock, and the 
little thud of Minerva’s padded feet as she 
jumped down from the cushioned rocker and 
walked daintily over to rub her arched back 
against Daddy Jim’s legs. 

And then Doctor Billy spoke. “ I finally 
located A1 Evans. He was frightened and dis¬ 
tressed about Sylvia. The place where he’s been 
getting stuff since the Jones raid is an old house 
across the tracks; he took us there but we found 
nothing except empty barrels and bottles and 
overturned chairs. They probably became 
frightened when they found all the Stubbles 
was up in arms. The Fairmont police are 
working on it now, too. They’ll surely get a 
clue by night and we’ll have her safe and sound 
and —” 

But Daddy jim suddenly interrupted him. 

“ It’s that Jones fellow who is at the bottom 
of it,” he cried bitterly, clenching his fist—“ and 
after all she did for him! Oh! Sylvia, 


158 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

Sylvia—” and he sorrowfully bowed his head 
in his hands. 

The Lonely Lady, white faced and with 
trembling lips, stepped to his side and laid her 
fingers gently on his arm. “ But Sylvia has no 
enemies, Mr. Gray, we all know there is no one 
more beloved by all the Stubbles than she — 
we must hope —” 

Daddy Jim raised a drawn, haggard, dry¬ 
eyed face to hers — “That is true; Sylvia has 
no enemies — but her father has—” 

“Don’t, don’t, man!” cried Doctor Billy, 
grasping his hand. “ Nothing can have hap¬ 
pened to her! Nobody could hurt her. All 
she’d have to do would be to look at them — 
they couldn’t—” 

Doctor Billy’s hand, searching hastily for his 
handkerchief, came in contact with his bulging 
coat pocket where Sylvia’s little slipper lay. 
His fingers closed over it tightly, and then he 
bolted so suddenly for the door that Daddy Jim 
and the Lonely Lady both stared after him 
wonderingly. 

Late that evening, on a lonely road across the 
creek from the Stubbles, ten miles or more 


159 


Leah’s Hour of Trial 

away — a road rough with stones and over¬ 
grown with weeds, walked Leah, dressed in 
black. She hurried along determinedly, her 
dark eyes fixed straight ahead of her, as one 
who sees an unpleasant and fearful task that 
must be done. At the end of a narrow lane she 
turned abruptly, climbed under a barbed-wire 
fence and entered what seemed to be an 
uncleared wood. 

A dog barked warningly until she called his 
name in a soft, clear voice. He came running 
to her, placing his cool nose in her hand and 
frisking about her delightedly. She stood there 
for a moment, caressing his shaggy head, then 
drawing in her breath sharply, hurried on 
toward the thicket which partly concealed a 
low, unpainted house from whose window a 
shaft of light shone faintly. 

In answer to her knock, the old shirt which 
hung across the window was drawn back a little 
way while a pair of dark eyes peered out intq 
the night; then the door was opened by a young 
man with a heavy jaw and wide, cruel-looking 
nostrils. He gazed leeringly down into her 
white face. 


160 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“Welcome home, Coz!” he purred, chuck¬ 
ing her under the shin. 

The girl shrank away from his touch. 
“Where is she?” she demanded. 

“ Having a nice little nap. You don’t seem 
any too glad to see me, sweetheart.” 

The girl brushed past his outstretched hands, 
and went into the next room, where on an old 
wooden bed, Sylvia, with flushed cheeks, her 
golden hair twining in damp little tendrils 
about her face, lay sound asleep. 

Leah went to her quickly and sat down on 
the side of the bed, taking one of the hot little 
hands in her own. 

The black-browed fellow threw himself 
astride a chair, his arms folded across its back, 
and regarded the girl with a heavy smile. 
“You’re a good deal better looking than when 
you went away — do you know it? Seems to 
agree with you, playin’ the fine lady, eh? See 
here, that kid don’t need all your attention, 
does she? ” 

“ She’s what I came for,” replied Leah 
shortly. 

The man’s heavy eyebrows raised high above 


161 


Leah’s Hour of Trial 

his narrow, blood-shot eyes. “ And I s’pose 
you think all you have to do is to ask for her! ” 

The girl looked at him fearlessly, with flash¬ 
ing eyes. u No — I knew you’d have a price. 
But I want you to remember this, Harry War¬ 
ren, I might have notified the police and 
brought them along when I found out where 
you were.” 

“Ho, ho! We provided for that — never 
worry. And then we counted on your loyalty 
to your own flesh and blood, you see!” 

“You’re not any of you worth — anything, 
since Grandfather died! I ought to have told 
on you!” flashed the girl with sudden fire, 
“ But I wouldn’t think even you, Harry War¬ 
ren, could be brute enough to hurt a child like 
this.” 

“ She isn’t hurt,” he snapped. 

“ What is it you want? ” Leah, grown calm 
again, fixed her dark eyes on the man’s face. 

“ Well — I wanted that would-be reformer 
that — constable ”—he swore a vile oath — 

i* * 1 

“ to get out, like he made us get out, damn him 
— or else I want to scare him into minding his 
business and letting us alone. But I didn’t 


162 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

count on the whole blamed country getting 
riled up this way over the kid’s disappearance. 
It’ll hardly be safe for me to stay ’round here 
now, so I may get out for a while.” 

Leah looked up in surprise at his apparent 
peaceful yielding. The man arose from the 
chair and slouched towards her, his black head 
lowered between his massive shoulders, his 
eyes half closed and leering. He placed a 
heavy hand on either of her slender shoulders 
and thrust his face close to hers. “ An’ when 
I go — I take you with me — as my wife — 
see? I always intended to marry you some day, 
anyway.” 

Leah’s face flushed. She recoiled from the 
physical nearness of the repulsive creature. 

“ An’ there’ll be no hfs or ‘ands’ about your 
goin’, neither — or else I’ll take the kid. She’ll 
be useful when she’s older,” he laughed insinu¬ 
atingly. “ She’s certainly a good looker.” 

The girl on the bed sat perfectly still, except 
that her hand tightened its grip on Sylvia’s 
until the latter stirred uneasily. Leah’s flash¬ 
ing dark eyes scanned the man’s face con¬ 
temptuously, and her lips curled with scorn. 


163 


Leah's Hour of Trial 

“ Is there anything decent in you, Harry 
Warren, that a person could talk to, I wonder,” 
she asked. 

The man laughed harshly and removed his 
hands from her shoulders. 

“ If you mean, is there any other way out, 
my fine lady — No! And you know me!” 

Yes, Leah knew him. She knew that what 
he wanted he got, by fair means or foul. She 
bent her head and her lips quivered, as she 
gathered the sleeping child close in her arms. 
“ Send for somebody to marry us then,” she 
said in a toneless voice, “ and let them take 
Sylvia back to her Daddy Jim.” 


CHAPTER X 


The Interrupted Wedding 

HE sun of another day peeked in at 
the windows of the Little Gray 
House that seemed, somehow, so 
big and empty without the little 
presence; and then it hid itself behind a big 
cloud, and the sky grew dark again with 
threatening rain. 

Doctor Billy poked the fire and shivered, 
although it was not cold. He was trying to 
cook something warm for Daddy Jim, who 
leaned back in his chair with closed, dark- 
circled eyes. Doctor Billy moved quietly, hop¬ 
ing that the other man slept, for neither of them 
had closed an eye for two long nights. 

But Daddy Jim was not asleep. Presently 
he arose and walked to the window. “ Rain I ” 
he said wearily. 

Doctor Billy nodded. 

164 



The Interrupted Wedding 165 

“ Do you think,” asked Sylvia’s father slowly 
from the window, “ that it would do any good 
for me to move away from the Stubbles now — 
to do as they asked? ” 

“No — I don’t,” said Doctor Billy, shaking 
his head. “ It’s too late for that. They’re 
frightened and lying low because of the 
rumpus.” 

“ How could I know they’d carry out a das¬ 
tardly threat like that! Nobody ever pays any 
attention to anonymous letters. It seemed so 
ridiculous to run — like a coward —” 

“ Of course it did,” replied Doctor Billy from 
the stove where he was bending over a kettle. 
“We’ve done all we can — we’ll have to wait, 
now.” 

The older man groaned and dropped into 
a chair. 

“ Here,” said Doctor Billy, dishing out a bowl 
of steaming soup. “ I guess this stuff’s done. 
I don’t know how good it is ” — with a grimace 
— “it looks a bit queer. But it’s hot. Trv a 
little,” he urged. 

They both made a pretense at eating, but it 
was a poor attempt. “ Sylvia might be hun- 


166 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

gry,” each kept thinking; “ Sylvia might be 
frightened, unhappy. She might even be—” 
Doctor Billy gave it up and walked to the 
window. 

“Somebody’s coming!” he exclaimed sud¬ 
denly. “ Maybe there’s news! ” Good news or 
bad news — but something! He sprang to open 
the door, and stood facing a big, dark man, his 
hat pulled low to protect him from the rain. 

In answer to Doctor Billy’s invitation he 
entered, taking off his rain-soaked hat and hold¬ 
ing it with both hands. For a moment the drip 
— drip of water from his garments was the 
only sound in the room. Then both men ex¬ 
claimed at once, “Dave Jones!” 

The big man nodded and twisted the soak¬ 
ing hat awkwardly. “I — I —just heard about 
her — the little girl. I’ve been working on a 
farm the other side of town and just got 
through last night. Did you — do you know — 
have you any idea who did it? ” 

Both men stared at him, too amazed to speak. 
Dave Jones, of all people — the man they had 
suspected to be at the bottom of it! He seemed 
to read something of their thoughts, for with a 


The Interrupted Wedding 167 

sudden straightening of his big body he ex¬ 
claimed, 

“ My God! You didn’t think I was in on it, 
did you — after—” He did not finish the sen¬ 
tence. “ Why, I haven’t had anything to do 
with the gang since — not for a long time, but 
it’s likely some of ’em — I’ve often heard ’em 
threaten to get you! ” 

Doctor Billy was the first to recover himself. 
He placed a chair for the man and brought out 
the warning note Daddy Jim had received. 
“ Harry Warren! ” exclaimed Dave Jones after 
one glance at the scrawling handwriting. 
“ Then I bet I know where he’s hiding her.” 

Daddy Jim and Doctor Billy were already on 
their feet, putting on their hats and coats. 
“ You’ll take us there now—” said Daddy Jim. 

“Yes,” answered the man. “But we better 
get some others. They’ll be ready for us, and 

there’s a pack of them.” 

# * * * * 

In the chill gray light of early dawn, Sylvia 
awoke and cried out in surprise and joy at see¬ 
ing Leah sitting on the bed beside her. 

“Oh, my Leah!” she cried, clasping the 


168 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

girl’s hand in both of hers. “ Is Daddy Jim 
hurt? That ugly man said—” 

“No, Honey, your Daddy Jim’s all right.” 

“ Then take me to him, right straight off, 
Leah. Please — he’ll be so worried, and—” 
“Yes, dear — don’t worry — you’re going 
back to him — pretty soon now.” 

She took Sylvia with her to the kitchen, 
where a lanky, swarthy boy, his chair tilted 
against the outside door, sat fast asleep, snoring 
loudly, a heavy gun across his knees. In the 
other room several men were talking and smok¬ 
ing. One of them offered to help Leah get 
some breakfast, but she haughtily spurned his 
offer, saying she preferred to do it alone. 

While the water was boiling for coffee she 
wrote a note, slowly and laboriously, shading 
her eyes with her hand as though the dim light 
of the candle hurt them — or perhaps it was 
the smoke from the old stove. When she had 
finished she read it over slowly, then she folded 
it several times and handed it to Sylvia. “ Give 
this to Doctor Billy for me, will you, Honey? ” 
she said. 

Sylvia looked at her in surprise. “ But 


The Interrupted Wedding 169 

you'll see Doctor Billy before I do, Leah! ” she 
said wonderingly. 

Leah shook her head. “ No — I’ll never see 
him — any more — I’m not — going back.” 

“Not going back, Leah!” cried Sylvia. 
“ Oh, what do you mean? Where are you 
going? Not going back to Dr. Lynn and Han¬ 
nah and Tim and Doctor Billy — why, what will 
they do without you—” Sylvia had thrown 
her arms about Leah’s slender waist and was 
weeping heart-brokenly. 

“ Hush, Honey,” said the girl, trying to 
soothe her. “ The letter tells why I’m not 
going back — you must—” 

But she was interrupted by sounds of con¬ 
fusion in the next room. Harry Warren and 
the preacher had arrived, and the former was 
in no very cheerful frame of mind. He had 
had difficulty in persuading the good man to 
venture out in the rain at that unearthly hour. 
He wa9 wet and hungry, and he swore at the 
others — under his breath in deference to the 
minister. “ Come on here,” he snarled at Leah 
as he stepped to the kitchen door, “come on, 
let’s get this business over with.” 


170 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

With slow, heavy steps Leah entered the 
room where all the Warren men — cruel-look- 
ing, unkempt, swarthy fellows — lolled, grin¬ 
ning sheepishly, filling the air with rank 
tobacco smoke. Most of them wore their hats, 
big black slouch hats, but Leah saw nothing of 
this. Her great mournful eyes were fixed upon 
the red, heavy face and close-clipped black hair 
of the man she was to marry, and the preacher 
who stood near him, book in hand, waiting. 

She clung tightly to Sylvia, as though the 
touch of the little hand — the last pure thing 
with which she would ever come in contact — 
would keep her from wavering, from crying 
out at the last moment, that she could not do 
this thing. Yet she knew that there was no 
alternative. Sylvia, herself, and even the min¬ 
ister were in danger if she should fail. She 
shuddered as he told Harry Warren to take 
her hand, while he began the words that would 
shut her out, forever, from the happy, whole¬ 
some, honest life she had so longed to live. 

Suddenly Sylvia, realizing for the first time 
what was happening, caught Leah’s hand away 
from the man’s, crying, “ No, no, Leah, you 


The Interrupted Wedding 171 

can’t! You mustn’t marry that ugly man.” 

The men around the edge of the room 
laughed, Harry Warren swore, while the girl 
sank to her knees beside the child and burst 
into tears. The astonished minister, whose 
curiosity had been aroused by the whole pro¬ 
ceeding, looked from one to the other, then 
touched Leah’s shoulder, “ Don’t you want to 
go on with this, girl?” he asked kindly. 
“ What is the trouble? ” - 

But Leah had made her promise. She dried 
her eyes and got to her feet. “Yes,” she 
replied, brushing the tears from her eyes, 
“please go on — quick. It’s all right.” 

Sylvia, perplexed and miserable, still clung 
to Leah’s side, hiding her face against the girl. 
She could not bear to see this thing which she 
felt to be evil; she could not seem to compre¬ 
hend the turn matters had taken. The min¬ 
ister’s voice went on droningly. There was a 
slight pause, then she heard the words: “I 
pronounce you-” 

A sharp exclamation from one of the men, a 
heavy pounding on the door and a loud voice 
crying, “Open in the name of the law!” fell 



172 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

like a thunderbolt on the little company. 

Sylvia’s heart leaped into her throat at the 
sound of that voice. And before any one could 
realize what she was doing she had unlocked 
the door and flung it open to Daddy Jim and 
his men. 

Then followed moments of wild confusion — 
muttered oaths, struggling men, overturned 
chairs, shattering glass, the scuffling of heavy 
boots, hoarse cries, a shot or two — terrible 
moments that Sylvia was never to forget in all 
the years afterward. But quiet came at last, 
and she found herself held tightly in Daddy 
Jim’s strong arms, w T hile he murmured over 
and over, “ My poor little girl! ” 

Doctor Billy, hat gone, thick hair disheveled, 
a long scratch on his cheek from a fight with one 
of the Warrens, came over and placed his 
fingers on Sylvia’s wrist in a most professional 
manner. “ How’s the pulse of the rescued 
Princess?” he asked gaily. 

Sylvia lifted her head. “ Oh, Doctor Billy,” 
she laughed, and then she burst into tears. She 
said afterwards it was the blood on his cheek 
that made her cry. 


The Interrupted Wedding 173 

That evening, when they were all safely back 
in the Little Gray House, and the Warrens 
locked in jail where they should have been 
long ago, Sylvia was the center of a happy 
group that included Daddy Jim, the Lonely 
Lady, Doctor Billy and Leah. Mr. Clark 
and Hilda, the whole Tweenie family, old 
Petey Swanson and many more of the neigh¬ 
bors had called to say how glad they were that 
Sylvia was safe. 

“ For vat,” said the old Swede with moist 
eyes, “ would the Stubbles do vidout 1 our 
Guiding Star ’ — as our Poet, Luke, poor boy, 
would say.” He could never mention the Poet 
without tears in his old eyes. 

The story of Leah’s unselfish sacrifice came 
out haltingly, after much questioning, and deep 
was the wonder and gratitude of all. 

“ Why, Leah,” said Daddy Jim brokenly as 
he grasped her slender hands firmly in his, “ I 
can never repay you — I feel that you have 
helped save what is to me the most precious 
thing in the world — Sylvia’s life.” 

The girl’s dark eyes glistened with unshed 
tears and she bent her head modestly. “ I was 


174 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

only just tryin’ to pay her and you back for 
some o’ the things you’ve done for me,” she said 
chokingly. 

“ Here, here,” cried Doctor Billy, who had 
disappeared for a little while and had just 
returned with the Jones man, who had gone 
with the prisoners into town, u this is no time 
or place for tears. Anybody who does any¬ 
thing but laugh or smile will be put out—in 
the name of the law!” he added with a dra¬ 
matic flourish. “ Isn’t that so, Constable 
Gray,” turning to Daddy Jim, who nodded 
smilingly in response. “ And now, ladies and 
gentlemen,” with a sweeping bow, “ let me pre¬ 
sent to you the real Knight who rescued our 
beloved Princess of the Stubbles from the 
Dragon’s Den — the Jones Baby’s father!” 

Sylvia ran to the big man and caught one of 
the brown hands in both hers and kissed it. 
“ Oh, I’m so glad it was you! ” she cried, “ I’m 
so glad it was you! ” 

“ Indeed, Mr. Jones,” said Daddy Jim fer¬ 
vently, “ I can only repeat to you what I said 
to Leah a few moments ago — that you have 
helped save, for me, the most precious thing in 


The Interrupted Wedding 175 

the world — my little daughter’s life.” 

“ It’s no more than your little girl’s done for 
us, sir,” the big handsome man replied, drum¬ 
ming his fingers embarrassedly on the arm to 
his chair. 

“ Where are you working now? ” asked 
Daddy Jim to cover an awkward pause. 

The fellow’s dark face flushed. “ I was 
working on a farm the other side of town, but 
they can’t use me any more. I just got back 
yesterday, and found everybody in the Stubbles 
up in arms about the little girl being gone, so 
just now I’m out of a job, as you might say. 
If you know of any place, sir, where they’re 
needing a man—” 

“ Oh,” exclaimed the Lonely Lady, “ where 
they’re needing a man — why, I have the very 
thing! I need a good, reliable man very badly, 
Mr. Jones, to look after the House on the Hill, 
and my farm farther out. Between the two it 
would keep you busy all of the time. And I 
also need a woman to help me about the house. 
I wonder if Mrs. Jones would consider coming, 
too. There’s the little cottage that was built 
for the gardener, standing empty. Your family 


176 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

could move in there and I’m sure you’d be very 
happy and comfortable.” 

Mr. Jones was too overcome to answer except 
by a nod, but his look of gratitude, as he bade 
her an awkward good-bye, left no doubt in the 
Lonely Lady’s mind. 

“ Well,” said Doctor Billy, “ seeing there 
aren’t any more lost Princesses to hunt, I s’pose 
I’ll have to go back to the humdrum existence of 
doctoring. Goodness knows what the hospital 
authorities ’ll say when I face them. You know 
I’ve just naturally stayed away on my own 
responsibility during this kidnapping affair. 
Maybe, like Mr. Jones, I’ll be out of a job, too. 
If they turn me out, you’ll see me to-morrow 
morning, flitting about your garden catching 
potato bugs,” he said, addressing the Lonely 
Lady with mock gravity. 

“ This isn’t the season for potato bugs, you 
poor city-bred thing,” she said, laughing. 

“Oh, isn’t it?” he asked. “Well, I’ll be 
up there cheating the early birds out of their 
worms, then — now don’t tell me it isn’t the 
season for worms — or birds. Come on, Leah, 
we’d better be going before I further disclose 


The Interrupted Wedding 177 

my ignorance of rural life.” He drew Leah 
from the room, and amid the general laugh 
that followed, and the joyful good-byes of the 
little party, they drove off. 

Before Doctor Billy went to bed that night he 
took from his pocket a stubbed little tan slip¬ 
per, and held it tightly in his hands for a mo¬ 
ment. Then he took out his handkerchief and 
blew his nose suspiciously. “ S’pose I’ve taken 
cold paddling around in this beastly rain,” he 
said aloud to himself. But nobody had noticed 
that he had the slightest signs of a cold. 


CHAPTER XI 


Sylvia at High School 

HE years had passed over the 
Stubbles. Sylvia had gone through 
the village school so rapidly and 
with such comparative ease and 
high honors that it had finally been decided 
that she should go to Fairmont to attend high 
school there. Daddy Jim was anxious for her 
to complete high school and then to go to col¬ 
lege — though he wondered where he was 
going to find the money with which to send her. 

And so, after much discussion by everybody 
concerned, it had been decided that Sylvia was 
to stay at Dr. Lynn’s, where Hannah and Leah 
could “ look after ” her. 

At first, Doctor Billy had come straight out 
with a proposition at which he had hinted many 
times. 

“ See here, Gray,” he had said. “ Dad has 

178 





179 


Sylvia at High School 

quite a bit of influence in Fairmont, and I have 
some pretty good friends there, myself. Why 
don’t you let us get you a position that will be 
worthy of your education and ability. You 
can’t use either on this little farm or in this 
little jerk-water village.” The stern line of 
Daddy Jim’s mouth grew sterner. “ I’m quite 
contented here,” he answered. 

“ Perhaps,” Doctor Billy had said, “ but you 
ought to think of Sylvia.” 

And then a faraway look had come into 
Daddy Jim’s eyes, and he had answered 
quietly: 

“I am thinking of her — more than you 
know.” 

Doctor Billy had seen, then, that his sugges¬ 
tion was useless, so he had proposed the plan that 
was finally agreed upon — the plan of Sylvia 
staying at Dr. Lynn’s in Fairmont. 

Just at first Daddy Jim had objected to that, 
too. He always objected to anything that 
looked like charity; but he had finally been 
persuaded that it was the most satisfactory 
arrangement practicable. 

And so Sylvia had packed up her simple 


180 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

little wardrobe and gone with Doctor Billy in 
his big car, to the Big Stone House. 

Two years — her Freshman and Sophomore 
years at high school — had swiftly rolled by; 
she had come back to the Stubbles to spend 
her first summer vacation, and now it was but 
a few days of the time to return to Fairmont 
for the third year of high school. 

Doctor Billy had driven out one evening to 
take back one of the boxes of books, pictures and 
similar treasures with which Sylvia loved to 
furnish her cozy little room in the Big Stone 
House. He and Daddy Jim were putting the 
things into the car when the latter said sud¬ 
denly with a sigh, “ Fm afraid that Sylvia is 
growing up.” 

Doctor Billy almost dropped the box he was 
carrying. But he laughed. “ I haven’t noticed 
it. What makes you think so?” 

“ Of course she’ll always be small — like her 
mother. It isn’t anything tangible — just a 
look now and then — as though she were keep¬ 
ing something from me. She’s always lived in 
such a little world of fancy, all her own, that 
it’s hard for me to remember she isn’t still a 


181 


Sylvia at High School 

baby, and while she’s unusually childish about 
some things, she’s wonderfully mature, for her 
age, about others. But she hasn’t been quite 
so frank — or talkative of late. Many times 
I’ve caught her with a dreamy, far-away look 
in her eyes, and when I ask her what she’s 
thinking about, instead of telling me some 
story about Fairies or the Poet, or a book she’s 
been reading, she evades an answer — all so 
unlike her. 

“ I asked her one day if she’d ever thought 
much about — boys. She laughed and answered 
quite frankly, ‘ Never a thought, Daddy Jim.’ 
But she blushed and dropped her eyes, and I’m 
not so sure. I don’t want to seem like a harsh, 
cruel parent, but I don’t want any — foolish¬ 
ness. I want to save her from anything that 
would mar her fineness the least little bit. And 
so I’m going to ask you to be on guard — while 
she’s away from me.” 

Doctor Billy leaned rather weakly against the 
car. “ Somehow, I hadn’t realized it was time 
to think about — things like that,” he said 
gravely. 

“Well, maybe it isn’t,” said Daddy Jim, 


182 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ but I just wanted to be on the safe side — to 
have your promise.” 

Doctor Billy nodded. “ You certainly have it. 
If Old Dog Tray was as faithful a watch dog 
as he was a friend, he won’t have a thing on 
me!” he said gaily, but his heart seemed sud¬ 
denly to have grown too small for him. Youth 
was so changeable — so elusive! 

Sylvia came running out of the house just 
then. To Doctor Billy it seemed only yesterday 
that she had come running down the road to 
meet him with the white butterfly clasped in 
her hands. To the casual observer she didn’t 
look very grown up. To be sure she was taller 
and more slender, and she had pinned her yel¬ 
low curls into a loose knot at the back of her 
neck, just as she used to do when she played 
“lady” with the pretty dresses that she found 
in the little green trunk in the attic. But — 
yes, there was a subtle something about the eyes 
that was different — more thoughtful — more 
womanly. 

“Are they all in?” she called gaily. She 
danced over to the car and peered over the side 
at the boxes and baskets in the tonneau. 


183 


Sylvia at High School 

“ All ready but the last load and the lady 
herself,” replied Doctor Billy, fanning himself 
with his straw hat, and affecting great fatigue. 
“ Now in the name of suffering humanity, 
mum, don’t tell us we haven’t packed your 
goods and chattels in there properly, for we’re 
nothing but poor weak men, and there’s a limit 
to our powers of endurance, you know, and if 
we had to rearrange them, I know that I for 
one, should faint by the wayside.” 

Sylvia laughed. “ Don’t worry, I think it’s 
beautifully packed — and you needn’t rearrange 
a thing. The last load and the lady herself 
won’t be ready though until Friday, so you’ll 
have a chance to get rested in the meantime.” 

Daddy Jim laid his hand tenderly on the top 
of Sylvia’s bright head. “ There’s something 
I want to instruct you about, Doctor Billy,” he 
said. “ I charge you to see that she doesn’t do 
her hair up in any of these outlandish ways 
that seem to be the fashion just now. She’s to 
keep on wearing it with ribbons.” 

“ But Daddy Jim,” said Sylvia with a mis¬ 
chievous twinkle in her eye, “ you said there 
were to be no beaux.” 


184 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

Doctor Billy nodded gravely. “ I understand 
perfectly,” he said solemnly. “ Bows in the 
hair, but no beaux in the heart.” He smiled 
down at Sylvia. For a swift moment her eyes 
met his, then quickly she looked away. 

“ Well, good-night, everybody, I’ll be out to¬ 
morrow, maybe, if nobody breaks a collarbone 
or suddenly develops mumps.” And he waved 
good-bye as he drove off. 

The next afternoon Sylvia trudged slowly up 
the hill to the Lonely Lady’s, where the two 
had been spending three or four afternoons a 
week sewing for Sylvia. The former remem¬ 
bering her own high school days, and knowing 
a girl’s love for pretty clothes, suggested to 
Daddy Jim that she be given the pleasure of 
helping during the summer with Sylvia’s ward¬ 
robe. He had been only too glad to delegate 
the responsibility to her, and many a happy 
hour had she and Sylvia spent, working over 
pretty gingham flounces and serge seams. And 
more than one dainty accessory had the Lonely 
Lady added to the practical little outfit, on the 
plea that she loved to work on the pretty things 
and there was really no use in making them for 


Sylvia at High School 185 

herself, for she went out so little and had so 
little chance to wear them. 

In the companionable hours they had spent 
together a new bond had sprung up between 
them. Ever since the time the Lonely Lady 
had come with her invalid brother to live at 
the big house on the hill, the Stubble folks had 
looked upon her with something of awe and 
suspicion. Her brother had died a few months 
after their arrival, and she had gone on living 
alone in the beautiful big place, mingling very 
little with her neighbors and rarely seen by 
them until Sylvia had made her acquaintance 
and introduced her to the other inhabitants of 
the little village. 

The Joneses lived at the Lonely Lady’s now, 
Mrs. Jones helping about the house and Mr. 
Jones taking care of the grounds and stock and 
gardens that were part of the big estate. Little 
Billy Jones was the cunningest youngster in the 
world, Sylvia thought, with bright hair like his 
mother’s, and dark eyes like his father’s and a 
“ curly ” mouth. 

To Sylvia there were “ curly ” mouths and 
“ straight ” mouths, just as there was curly hair 


186 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

and straight hair. Doctor Billy had a curly 
mouth; Daddy Jim’s was straight. There was 
something strangely alike in the smiles of the 
two Billys; Sylvia thought it might have been 
because Doctor Billy had saved the little Jones 
Boy’s life when he was a baby. 

When Sylvia reached the Big House this 
sunny afternoon the Lonely Lady was not on 
the cool, shaded veranda where they were wont 
to sit and sew; but she caught a glimpse of a 
light dress through the ivy-covered trellis of 
the little summer house in the garden where 
the Lonely Lady often sat to read or sew when 
the weather was especially warm. Sylvia, in¬ 
tending to surprise her, stole up softly on 
tiptoe. 

Then she stopped. She heard a man’s voice 
in the summer house — Doctor Billy’s voice — 
only it was deeper, more earnest than she had 
ever heard it. “ I’m the happiest person in the 
world, dear! And you mustn’t worry. We’ll 
make it all right with Dad. He can’t help 
loving you as I love you —” 

Sylvia waited for no more. Down the hill 
she ran and across the road. Among the wilted 


187 


Sylvia at High School 

little flowers in her own tiny garden she sank 
upon the ground. The day seemed suddenly to 
have grown chill and gray — the joy and 
brightness had gone out of it. All her little 
world had turned topsy-turvy and she was left 
alone, sitting in the midst of it. Mechanically 
,she began heaping up little mounds in the soft 
dry earth. Doctor Billy, her own dear Doctor 
Billy, had deceived her. He had told her he 
wasn’t a Prince and never wanted to be one — 
and now, and now — She didn’t want Doctor 
Billy to be the Prince. She wanted Daddy Jim. 
Why, only the other day, here in this very place 
she had found out a wonderful secret. The 
Lonely Lady had been helping her revive some 
of her sick little flowers. Daddy Jim had come 
and helped them, too, and when the Lonely 
Lady went home he had found her handkerchief 
where she had dropped it, and picking it up, 
had held the little soft white thing in both his 
big brown hands, as one holds something very 
dear and precious, and then he had bowed his 
head over the little piece of linen and had 
tucked it away inside his coat. 

Sylvia, watching him, had understood and 


188 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

was very glad. She ran to him and caught his 
hand. “Oh, Daddy Jim, you do love the 
Lonely Lady, don’t you! ” 

And Daddy Jim, with a startled look and a 
boyish blush, had caught her to him and held 
her close. “ I’m afraid I do, daughter. But it 
must be our secret — yours and mine. Not an¬ 
other living soul must ever know.” 

“But the Lonely Lady, Daddy Jim — she 
must know! ” 

“ Most of all not she! ” Daddy Jim had ex¬ 
claimed with alarm. “ Remember — the Lonely 
Lady must never know! ” 

“ But why? ” Sylvia had persisted. 

“ Because — because ” — he had replied, 
“ well, you see, the Lonely Lady is very rich — 
and I am very poor — it makes all the differ¬ 
ence in the world. It would hurt her to know, 
and it would hurt me, too. So you must never 
tell — promise me, dear! ” 

And Sylvia had promised, though the 
obstacle of wealth had seemed very trivial to 
her; she felt it could soon be overcome, and 
everything would happen as she had planned 
it should. But she had not counted on Doctor 


189 


Sylvia at High School 

Billy’s failing her — Doctor Billy who had al¬ 
ways been her trusted friend! Nothing could 
ever come right now. She heaped the dusty 
little mounds higher in her despair, as she tried 
to quiet her dry, choking sobs and the dull, 
throbbing ache in her throat. 

The front gate clicked, and she heard a gay 
voice singing: 

“ Then to Sylvia let us sing 
That Sylvia is excelling; 

She excels each mortal thing 
Upon the dull earth dwelling — 

To her let us garlands bring.” 

It was Doctor Billy’s favorite song, but it 
sounded like a funeral dirge in her ears. She 
hastily dried her eyes with a dirty little hand. 

“ Sylvia, what ho! ” Doctor Billy himself ap¬ 
peared around the corner of the house. “ What, 
making mud pies — a High School Junior 
making mud pies! Mercy on us, is this bloom¬ 
ing old world going backward? I thought you 
were too old for that.” 

Sylvia did not raise her eyes; nor did she 
answer. Doctor Billy sat down cross-legged 
on the ground beside her. 


190 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ Tell me, what kind of tarts is the Queen 
of Hearts making to-day? ” he asked, putting 
his forefinger under her chin and tilting her 
face up to his. 

“They’re not mud pies — they’re graves!” 

“Graves! Great Scott! Why this moody 
melancholy? I never saw you like this be¬ 
fore, Princess — and what are you burying in 
your graves? ” 

Sylvia turned her head away, the soft lips 
trembled, and a glistening tear trickled down 
the oval of her cheek. Doctor Billy saw it 
and his hand sought out her slender dusty one. 

“ Why Sylvia, dear, tell Doctor Billy what’s 
the matter.” Still she was silent, while he 
hurried on; “I’ve the greatest news in the 
world, Princess! You couldn’t guess what in 
a million years!” 

And then a queer little choked voice an¬ 
swered, “I — I know all about it, Doctor Billy 
— I was — outside the summer house — and I 
heard! ” 

“You were! Well, isn’t it wonderful? — 
You don’t seem very enthusiastic, Sylvia. Look 
here. Why, I thought you’d be glad.” 


Sylvia at High School 191 

“I — I congratulate you,” murmured Sylvia 
through the moist folds of a handkerchief. 

“ Oh, you do! ” laughed Doctor Billy. “ See 
here, you funny little mouse, what’s up?” 

“Nothing — only I — I — you said you 
weren’t the Prince — and I — ” 

“The Prince! What Prince? Of course 
not. I don’t consider that I’ve done anything 
princely. It’s you — and the Lonely Lady. 

— And I wanted your help now, Sylvia, with 
Dad. But of course — see here,” as Sylvia 
mopped her eyes vigorously with a wet little 
wad of a handkerchief, “what’s the trouble? 
I should think you’d be glad to have little Bill 
so near you, every day.” 

“Little Bill!” 

“ Yes, if we can make things right with Dad, 
they’ll come and live with us. Margey says — ” 

“ Margey! Margey says!” Sylvia was 
stupidly repeating Doctor Billy’s words like a 
little Pol-parrot. Then suddenly with a joyous 
sweep of her hand she demolished all the 
graves and caught Doctor Billy’s arm. “ Oh, 
what is it, Doctor Billy? Tell me all about it 

— quick! ” 


192 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“But I thought you knew!” cried the 
amazed Doctor Billy. 

“So did I,” replied Sylvia, abashed; “but 
I guess I don’t know anything — tell me!” 

And then he told her, as they sat there in 
the wilted garden, how the Lonely Lady had 
discovered that Mrs. Jones was Margery Lynn, 
Doctor Billy’s long-lost sister. Doctor Billy 
had been too young when she went away with 
her handsome dark lover to remember much 
about her; besides he would never have recog¬ 
nized her, for she was much changed by hard 
work and poverty and trouble. But she had 
recognized him, and that was the reason she 
had acted so strangely when Doctor Billy was 
about; for she was proud and had sworn that 
her family should never know of her trouble 
and poverty. And so they had gone away 
to a distant state, where two little babies had 
been born and had died. Soon afterwards, 
Mr. Jones’ old father had left them the little 
farm at the Stubbles and they had moved back, 
much against Mrs. Jones’ will. Then, when 
Sylvia had so unwittingly brought Doctor Billy 
into her life and she was in constant danger of 


193 


Sylvia at High School 

discovery, she had insisted on leaving the 
Stubbles again and they had done so. But, 
unable to make a living elsewhere, they had 
returned, and Mr. Jones, discouraged by pov¬ 
erty and ill health, had fallen a prey to the 
illicit practices of the Warrens. Now, how¬ 
ever, thanks to Sylvia’s and the Lonely Lady’s 
help and intervention, Dave Jones was prov¬ 
ing himself a man and Margery could once 
more hold up her head. 

When the Lonely Lady had discovered the 
secret she had persuaded Mrs. Jones to confide 
it to Doctor Billy. And now he had come to 
Sylvia for help. “You can do more with Dad 
than anyone I know,” he said. “ You know 
you’ve helped me out of more than one tight 
place, Princess, and I’m banking on your magic 
smile again.” 

It was a grave responsibility, but Sylvia 
promised to do her best. Doctor Billy could 
no longer accuse her of a lack of enthusiasm, 
for she danced about the yard laughing and 
singing, until he caught her, demanding that 
she explain her hilarious conduct, and tell him 
what it was she thought she had heard in the 


194 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

summer house. But Sylvia, with very pink 
cheeks, had jerked herself away from him and, 
laughing joyously, had run away to tell Daddy 
Jim the glad news. 

The four of them, Sylvia, the Lonely Lady, 
Doctor Billy and Daddy Jim, put their heads 
together and decided that Sylvia should break 
the news about Margery Lynn to old Doctor 
Lynn as soon as seemed politic after her ar¬ 
rival at Fairmont on Friday. 


CHAPTER XII 


Dr. Lynn’s “ Little Girl ” 

REAT was the feeling of excitement 
at the Big House on the Hill and 
in the Little Gray House at the foot 
of the hill. Everybody except Doc¬ 
tor Billy tried to act quite calm and composed, 
but nobody succeeded. Mrs. Jones’ work was 
punctuated at intervals by alternate spells of 
hysterical laughter and ill-concealed weeping; 
Sylvia, absorbed in planning just how she 
would present the wonderful news to Doctor 
Lynn, absent-mindedly made three sleeves for 
her gingham dress, all for the left arm; Daddy 
Jim came in from the fields a dozen times a 
day to inquire, “ Well, Daughter, what’s the 
latest?” Even the Lonely Lady, whose quiet 
poise had always elicited Sylvia’s wonder and 
admiration, came dashing down to the Little 
Gray House one morning with a black leather 

Oxford on one foot and a blue satin bedroom 

195 



196 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

slipper on the other, and then forgot what she 
had come for. 

But Doctor Billy — well, Doctor Billy was 
positively incorrigible. He raced out to the 
Stubbles between sick calls in the morning, and 
after office hours in the afternoon and some¬ 
times again in the evening. He threw his 
hat in the air, sang at the top of his voice 
and turned handsprings all over the Lonely 
Lady’s lawn. He swooped little Bill off his 
feet and tossed the surprised youngster up in 
the air until he gasped and cried, “ Stop! stop! 
I can’t breathe! ” 

Only Mr. Jones went quietly about his 
work, with a worried, anxious look in his eyes, 
wondering just how the old doctor would take 
this sudden news. 

And so the week sped by and Friday came. 
Doctor Billy drove to the Stubbles to get “ the 
last load and the lady herself,” as he had said 
he would. The “ last load ” wasn’t a very 
big one, just a suitcase and the little steamer 
trunk in which Sylvia with the Lonely Lady’s 
help had so carefully packed the pretty dresses 
and underwear and her few dainty trinkets. 


Dr. Lynns “Little Girl" 


197 


All the neighbors had gathered at the Little 
Gray House to say good-bye; the whole Tweenie 
family, from the littlest baby in its mother’s 
arms to Papa and Mama Tweenie, as fat and 
good natured as ever; the Lonely Lady was 
there, of course; so were Mr. and Mrs. Jones, 
and even old Petey Swanson and Granny 
Evans had hobbled over, the former with a 
red and green striped bag of stick candy, the 
latter with a box of caraway seed cookies, for 
neither of them could realize that Sylvia was 
growing up — past the age when refreshments 
on the way, particularly refreshments out of a 
striped bag or a shoe box, constitute the best 
part of any journey. 

The good-byes had all been said, and amidst 
the chatter of last messages, kisses and hand¬ 
shakes, Doctor Billy started the engine. Sylvia 
leaned over the side of the car to give her 
father a last hug as he took her face between 
his hands and kissed her gravely. “ Good-bye, 
Sylvia, little daughter,” he said. “ Remember, 
dear, Doctor Billy has promised to look after 
you as carefully as I would, and you are to 
go to him with anything that perplexes you, 


198 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

anything that needs immediate advice — Good¬ 
bye.” 

“ Good-bye, dear, dear Daddy Jim,” she said, 
giving him a resounding smack. “ Good-bye, 
everybody,” waving her hand and throwing 
kisses, “ Good-bye, good-bye.” 

The big green car rolled out of sight. 

“ Too bad, too bad she must go und leaf 
us,” said Petey Swanson, wiping his eyes. “ She 
always make me tink of Luke, poor boy. Too 
bad he can’t see her now, huh? De little Star 
Child. Sylvia vas getting to be such a grown¬ 
up little lady, ain’t she.” 

The little group slowly dispersed. Granny 
Evans and Petey Swanson went off down the 
road; Mr. and Mrs. Jones with little Bill 
trudged up the hill, and Father and Mother 
Tweenie, collecting the nine Tweenies, most 
of whom were dissolved in tears at Sylvia’s de¬ 
parture, scattered across the field to the bulg¬ 
ing little house discernible through the trees on 
the other side of the creek. 

Daddy Jim turned a sad face to the Lonely 
Lady. “ I shall miss her more than ever,” he 
said. “ Petey’s right—Sylvia is growing up.” 


Dr. Lynns “Little Girl” 199 

Old Dr. Lynn did not attempt to conceal his 
gladness at having Sylvia back. 

“ You needn’t expect me to growl for your 
amusement this time, young lady,” he said as 
he greeted her. He never forgot what Sylvia 
had said about his funny growl on her first visit 
to the Stone House. “ I shall sing like a canary 
all the time you’re here.” 

The second evening after her arrival the old 
doctor glanced up from his newspaper at the 
unusual sound of a childish voice outside his 
study door. “ Don’t rumple your hair up so, 
Billy boy, I want it to look nice.” And then 
in disgusted baby tones, “ Boys’ hair don’t look 
nice! ” 

The old gentleman got to his feet in amaze¬ 
ment as the door opened and Sylvia entered 
with a handsome, brown-eyed little lad. She 
was a bit disconcerted at first at the suddenness 
with which the Doctor confronted her, but 
there flashed through her mind the thought of 
all the folks who were counting on her. 

“ This — this is a little friend of mine from 
the Stubbles — I take care of him a lot when 
I’m home in vacation time, because his mother 


200 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

is very busy — I — I thought you wouldn’t 
mind if I kept him here for a few days. You 
remember, don’t you, Dr. Lynn, the little baby 
Doctor Billy saved that time — the Butterfly 
Baby? — Well — this is that baby!” 

“ Well, well, well, well, well, bless my heart 
and soul,” chirruped Dr. Lynn, looking over 
the rims of his spectacles in amazement. “ You 
don’t say! What’s your name, sir?” 

“ Billy,” said the child, taking a step away 
from Sylvia and squaring his chubby little 
shoulders. 

“ Billy! Well, well, well,” said the doctor. 
“ Not much of a name, but it happens to be 
mine, too. We ought to be friends.” 

“You bet we will!” agreed the child with 
interest. He stood there for a moment, with 
short, fat legs wide apart, his curly head on 
one side, looking like a chubby kewpie as his 
big eyes traveled slowly from the top of the 
old doctor’s bald head to the toe of his shiny 
shoes. Then, “I like you!” he said gravely. 
“ Can you play football ’n tell stories?” 

Dr. Lynn scratched his head thoughtfully. 
“ Well, now, I’m not so sure about the foot- 


Dr. Lynns “Little Girl” 


201 


ball, but I can tell some whooping good stories,” 
he exclaimed, slapping his knee delightedly. 

“Aw right!” said Billy, putting a confident 
hand in his. “Tell one now — ’bout lions ’n 
tigers ’n boats ’n sojers.” 

The old doctor, flattered by the demand and 
staggered by its suddenness, settled himself in 
his big chair, and taking little Bill on his lap, 
began an amazing tale of soldiers and ship¬ 
wrecks, and pirates and monstrous wild beasts 
that would have made Robinson Crusoe’s ad¬ 
venture seem tame in comparison. The child 
listened with big-eyed attention, interrupting 
only once, at the climax of the story, to ask, 
“ What makes you have two chins? My daddy 
has jes’ one!” 

Sylvia, watching the two, could scarcely 
conceal her delight. Fortunately they had 
“ taken ” to each other at once — a great deal 
depended upon that — she felt that the rest of 
the plan would work out easily. 

The friendship of the two grew rapidly. The 
moment the doctor got home from his office 
he would ask for little Bill, and his pockets 
were always bulging with candy or toys. The 


202 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

third day of the child’s visit Doctor Billy came 
home early in the afternoon — at an hour his 
father invariably devoted to office patients, to 
find the two sitting on the floor, their heads 
close together, struggling with a balky toy 
engine. 

The very next evening, Sylvia, going to look 
for little Billy — for it was long past his bed¬ 
time— found him fast asleep in the old doc¬ 
tor’s arms, while the man was gazing at the 
child with strangely wistful eyes. He placed 
a finger on his lips when Sylvia entered. 

“ The little rascal went to sleep while I was 
telling him a story to-night, and I — I was 
afraid of waking him if I carried him up to 
bed. He’s a fine-looking little chap, isn’t he? 
Who did you say his father is?” 

“ He works for the Lonely Lady,” Sylvia 
whispered evasively. 

“And they’re poor — did you say? Do you 
suppose they’d — they’d be willing to let me — 
sort of adopt him? We need a youngster about 
the old place.” 

Sylvia’s heart was beating fast. “I — I 
don’t know. He’s all the baby they have. The 


Dr. Lynns “Little Girl” 


203 


other two died. But you — you might ask his 
mother. She’s downstairs now. She — she 
came to take him home.” 

The doctor’s arms tightened about the child. 
“ To take him home,” he said slowly. He 
hesitated a moment while Sylvia held her 
breath. 11 Well, bring her up. It wouldn’t do 
any harm to talk to her.” 

Sylvia flew down the stairs, her swift beating 
heart keeping time with her tripping feet. 

A moment later the door to the old doctor’s 
study opened slowly and a low voice aroused 
him from his reverie. 

“You — wanted to see me — Father?” 

Startled, the old man leaned forward, shad¬ 
ing his eyes with his blue-veined hand, gazing 
at the figure in the doorway. It was not hard 
to recognize her now, for in a soft white dress 
that the Lonely Lady had given her, and with 
her hair done in a becoming, girlish way, she 
looked much like the Margery Lynn who had 
stormily left this very room that night so many 
years ago. 

The old doctor’s arms relaxed their hold of 
the child, who awakened and recognizing his 


204 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

mother cried out “ Mommy,” and ran to her. 
But still the old man stood staring with white 
face and dim eyes. Then he held out two 
trembling arms and in a low voice, quivering 
with tenderness cried “ Margery — my little 
daughter! ” 

Margery flew straight to him and Sylvia 
quietly closed the door, leaving the two alone 
in the study. In the hall outside she and Doc¬ 
tor Billy and Hannah stood, waiting breath¬ 
lessly. And when, at last, Doctor Billy dared 
to open the door and look in, they saw Margery 
Lynn and little Bill both held tight in the old 
doctor’s arms. 

“ Billy,” he cried, his gruff old voice choking 
with emotion, “she’s come back to us! — to 
stay—Margery — my little girl! Sylvia has 
brought her!” 

And so the news was broken. 

“ Every single part of this has gone just 
exactly right, hasn’t it? ” said Sylvia to Doctor 
Billy the evening after the meeting between old 
Dr. Lynn and Margery Jones. She had driven 
to the hospital with Doctor Billy when he went 
to make an after-supper call, and after the call 


Dr. Lynns “Little Girl ” 


205 


he had proposed that they drive a while longer. 

“ Well, there’s nothing so strange about that,” 
he said with a twinkle in his gray eyes, “ look 
who engineered the affair.” 

Sylvia laughed. “It wasn’t my fault — 
everything just happened right. And isn’t it 
glorious that Margery and Mr. Jones and little 
Bill can come right here to live and then 
there’ll be somebody besides Hannah to look 
after your father and you, so Leah can begin 
to take the course in nursing that Dr. Lynn has 
been wanting her to have.” 

“Yes, and by the time she’s finished the 
course and nursed for six months or a year 
Tim will be making just about enough out at 
the mine where he has gone to work, so that 
he’ll have nerve enough to ask her to marry 
him, and she’ll say 1 yes ’ and they’ll settle 
down and scrimp along and there’ll be another 
splendid nurse lost in the sea of matrimony.” 
Doctor Billy spoke so vehemently that Sylvia 
looked up in surprise. 

“ Yes, but what can you do about it? ” she 
said dubiously. 

“ I’m sure I don’t know. It’ll take a wiser 


206 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

head than mine to figure it out,” said Doctor 
Billy, tweaking the little curl that lay at the 
nape of her neck. 

“ But why should you want to figure it out? 
Isn’t it all right for them to get married? Tim 
would be happy and Leah would be happy, 
and what more could anybody want? ” 

“Nothing — nothing more in the world than 
happiness, my wise young lady; but you see I 
was speaking from a purely selfish viewpoint. 
Dad’s always talking about what a wonderful 
nurse Leah will make, and I’d been sort of 
thinking that she and I could work along beau¬ 
tifully together on cases, when she has finished 
her training — you know a big share of a doc¬ 
tor’s success depends upon the nurses who han¬ 
dle his cases — and I’d been counting on her 
figuring a good bit in my professional career. 
And then I looked a little farther ahead and 
saw how my bubble might burst all to pieces. 
— Don’t worry about anything I say, though, 
Sylvia, just lay it to the fact that I’m a cranky 
old bachelor—Hannah lays everything to 
that.” But the twinkle that came into Doctor 
Billy’s eyes was anything but cranky. 


Dr. Lynns “Little Girl" 207 

“ Doctor Billy,” said Sylvia, after a thought¬ 
ful pause, “ how old are you, anyway? ” 

“ How old do you think I am! ” 

“ Oh, about thirty-five or forty,” she an¬ 
swered absently. 

Doctor Billy slumped down behind the 
wheel. “ See here,” he demanded, “ would you 
say I looked like a half-brother to Methuselah? 
Or that I was tottering on the brink of the 
grave? ” 

Sylvia looked at him with a queer little 
smile. “ Well,” she said solemnly, “ sometimes 
I think it’s better to look older than you are, 
than to be older than you look, and have every¬ 
one think you’re a baby.” 

Doctor Billy groaned. “ Then it’s quite 
useless! But let me remind you, young lady, 
that I still lack a few weeks of being thirty — 
even if I do look forty. And how old do you 
think you are?” with a smile. 

“ Oh, I’m getting on towards eighteen.” 

“ My! My!” he said in a consoling voice, 
“but you are well preserved! How do you 
do it, anyway? You might almost pass for 
twelve or fifteen. You don’t s’pose you could 


208 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

offer any suggestions to an old chap of twenty- 
nine as to how he could manage to look just 
twenty-nine, instead of i thirty-five or forty,’ 
do you? ” 

But to his surprise, Sylvia lifted troubled 
eyes that threatened tears, and looked at him 
in a way that always made his heart act 
strangely for a substantial doctor’s heart. 

“ There are times when I feel that I am 
old — older than you, Doctor Billy!” she con¬ 
fided solemnly. 

“Good!” he exclaimed. “That’s the most 
comforting thing you’ve said this evening. I’ll 
remember it. But are — are there special times 
or circumstances that — a — seem to bring on 
this feeling of — decrepitude?” asked Doctor 
Billy, assuming his most professional air. 

Sylvia studied her thumb nail intently, try¬ 
ing hard to fight back the tears. She wished 
she had not come with Doctor Billy. Why 
did he persist in thinking her a little girl? 

Doctor Billy watched her for a moment out 
of the corner of his eye, then tilting back her 
troubled face said gravely, “ Let’s see that 
tongue! ” 


Dr. Lynns “Little Girl” 


209 


Sylvia wrinkled up her nose and stuck out 
her tongue, trying to make a little face at him; 
but two big tears rolled down her cheeks. 

“ See here, we can’t have any of that,” he 
said. “ It’s a perfectly healthy and adorable 
tongue, so I know that’s not the trouble. Don’t 
you feel that you can tell your old friend and 
family physician what’s causing the 1 aged ’ 
feeling— Sylvia? ” 

She brushed away the tears with the back 
of her hand. “ You’re making fun of me! ” 

41 No, I’m not.” 

“You’ll think I’m a — baby—” 

“ I’ve got to, Sylvia, or lose my head.” 

“And silly!” 

“Never!” protested Doctor Billy. 

“Well,” she began — swallowing hard — 
“ ever since I first came here to school, the 
girls — and boys — have acted sort of — 
queerly towards me. Just at first they — some 
of them — tried to be friendly, and asked me to 
their parties and dances. And — and one of 
the boys — ” Sylvia’s eyes wavered, then 
bravely met Doctor Billy’s steady gaze once 
more — “ was especially nice to me and asked 


210 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

me to go places with him. I wanted to, but 
I’d promised Daddy Jim about beaux — you 
remember — and I guess he — the boy — 
didn’t like it because I didn’t go when he asked 
me, and so they’ve sort of left me alone, and — 
and lots of times when I’d pass them, I’d hear 
the girls whispering and laughing together—” 
Sylvia looked away, and Doctor Billy waited 
for her to continue. “ I tried to make myself 
believe it didn’t have anything to do with me 

— but I knew it did. They made me feel so 
young — or old. I guess it was old. I won¬ 
dered if they were laughing because I didn’t 
do my hair up like most of them do — or — or 
act like they do. Finally I asked one of the 
girls why it was. She didn’t want to tell me 
at first, but finally she said they thought I was 

— ‘slow!’ I pretended I didn’t mind it, but 
I did — lots — and I feel so — so lonesome and 

— and out of things.” Another tear ran down 
Sylvia’s cheek in spite of her effort to wink 
it back. 

Doctor Billy looked at her steadily and 
gravely for a moment. “ Do the other girls 
have beaux? ” he asked. 


Dr. Lynns “Little Girl” 


211 


Sylvia nodded and blushed. “ Yes. I think 
that’s what they mean by calling me 1 slow.’ ” 

“And you want to be — like them?” 

“Well, I don’t like to be — different—and 
have to stay out of everything just because I 
haven’t a — a — ” 

“Say it—‘a beau,’” said Doctor Billy, 
laughing. 

“Well, then, ‘a beau,’” said Sylvia with 
averted eyes. 

They drove along in silence for a block or 
two. As they reached the dim outer circle of 
light from a park lamp, they saw on the 
benches along the path a number of couples 
— very young couples — seated very close to¬ 
gether. Some of the boys were boldly hold¬ 
ing the hands of the girls or resting an arm 
around their shoulders. 

Sylvia saw and her face grew hot as Doctor 
Billy said, “ Do you know any of those girls 
or boys?” 

“Yes — they’re all in high school.” 

Doctor Billy sighed. “ Sylvia, you don’t 
mean it when you say you don’t want to be 
1 different.’ Foolish virgins! — Why won’t they 


212 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

keep their lamps trimmed and burning for the 
coming of the bridegroom! They’ll be all 
blackened and tarnished before the Prince rides 
by, and when he comes he’ll never be able to 
recognize them.” 

“ But suppose the bridegroom doesn’t come? ” 
said Sylvia in a little far-away voice — “ Does 
— do you think every girl finds her Prince, 
Doctor Billy? ” 

“ Well, the Princes do seem to lose their 
way now and then,” he admitted. “You see, 
there are so many foolish virgins to send them 
in the wrong direction — and they are so easily 
sent! — But I honestly believe if they waited 
and kept faith — sometime — somewhere —. 
Only they’re all in such a hurry — such a hurry 
to grow up!” !And Doctor Billy shook his 
head. 

Finally he said, u See here, Sylvia, you say 
you’re pining away with loneliness and rather 
losing out on the party question for the lack of 
a beau. Now I’ve a modest suggestion to make. 
How would it be if I were to act in that 
capacity — until Daddy Jim releases you from 
the promise about bows in the hair but no 


Dr. Lynns “Little Girl” 


213 


beaux in the heart — or, perhaps until the real 
Prince comes riding by? Of course, I fully 
realize that an old chap of twenty-nine can’t 
fill such a position in a thoroughly up-to-date 
way, on account of his advanced age, but I 
promise you I’ll do my level best. I want you 
to be perfectly candid,” he went on in mock 
solemnity, “ and tell me frankly if I won’t do 
at all. I wouldn’t want the rest of them to 
twit you about having your 1 grandpa ’ escort¬ 
ing you to parties, you know.” 

Sylvia drew a long breath and clasped her 
hands. 

“ Won’t do f Doctor Billy — won’t do! Why 
it’ll be perfectly beautiful! Every girl I know 
in my class would rather have you escort her 
to a party than ten of the boys in high school. 
They all think you’re fine. And with the 
Junior Prom coming, and all the class parties 
and receptions and dances and things it will 
be just heavenly! ” 

“ Great Scott,” cried Doctor Billy, “ you flat¬ 
ter me beyond my wildest expectations, young 
lady. You not only flatter me, but you embar¬ 
rass me — see, I’m covered with confusion.” 


214 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ Well, they do, they’re all wild about you.” 

“ Well, then,” he continued briskly, “ shall 
we consider the transaction closed — with the 
understanding that you’re to adopt me as offi¬ 
cial escort, just as you might hire a chauffeur, 
for instance? You reserve the right to com¬ 
mandeer me into your service at any of my 
‘off’ hours; the right to send me or drag 
me hither or yon; the right to dictate as to my 
company manners and my dress — only pray 
be merciful when it comes to dress suits and 
patent leather pumps, Sylvia Sunshine, and 
another thing — remember, there’s nothing 
‘ cute ’ about Doctor Bill in a Little Lord 
Fauntleroy costume or an c inkspot ’ cap. Then 
of course you’ll have the right to discharge me 
at any time, either for the neglect of my duties, 
or on any other grounds you may wish to trump 
up, and when Daddy Jim withdraws his ban 
on beaux, I shall automatically retire from the 
field in favor of any other gallant knights who 
may seek the lily hand of the fair lady.” 

Sylvia giggled behind her handkerchief. 
“ Really, do you mean it, Doctor Billy? Won’t 
you think our parties are silly, and won’t you 


Dr. Lynn’s “Little Girl’ 9 


215 


get sick of going to them with me?” 

“ Madam,” he cried dramatically, “ why will 
you persist in having the last word? You have 
come to me in dire distress and I have laid 
my proposition before you — it is for you to 
reject or accept.” 

“ Then I accept it, with thanks,” said Sylvia 
meekly, “ and I hope you won’t be ashamed 
of having me so — different — from the rest.” 

Doctor Billy looked at her queerly for a 
moment, then he closed his lips very straight 
and tight. “No,” he said, “I shan’t mind it 
at all — your being ‘different.’ In fact, I’m 
fond of 1 different ’ people.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


Sylvia Remembers 

IR senior year sped swiftly and hap¬ 
pily for Sylvia. With Doctor 
Billy’s services as beau, older 
brother, father confessor and very 
good friend all in one; with Margery Jones and 
Little Bill’s pleasant companionship at Doctor 
Lynn’s; with flying trips back to the Stubbles 
to spend week-ends with Daddy Jim and to 
visit the Lonely Lady at the Big House on the 
Hill; with long letters from Leah, telling en¬ 
thusiastically of her nurses’ training course in 
the city, the winter and early spring had gone 
almost before Sylvia knew they had arrived. 

Sylvia had gone to the Stubbles to spend 
the Easter vacation quietly with Daddy Jim, 
“ for,” he had written her, “ the Princess has 
been growing up so fast and leading such a 
gay, busy life at school these last months, I’m 
afraid I’ll have to get acquainted with her all 




217 


Sylvia Remembers 

over again, and so I want her quietly all to 
myself for a couple of weeks before she quite 
grows out of her little-girlhood and goes away 
to college.” 

Sylvia had acquiesced at once. “ There are 
lots and lots of things I want to talk to you 
about, Daddy Jim,” she had written back, 
u things I can’t exactly have Doctor Billy 
straighten out, and I’ll be really glad of a quiet 
time back at the Little Gray House, with just 
you — not going to parties or anything for a 
while before commencement.” 

Daddy Jim sat looking into the fire after he 
had read the letter twice, and then he sighed 
and shook his head. 

“ It seems only yesterday,” he said to 
Minerva, who had long since outgrown her 
kittenhood, but who still liked to curl cosily 
beside the fire on the battered red cushion 
Sylvia had made for her so long ago, “ that 
she was a wee little thing, playing ‘ mother ’ 
with the Tweenies, and going on picnics with 
the Poet, and now she’s coming home to Daddy 
Jim to talk things over and have them straight¬ 
ened out. My, my, how time flies and how 


218 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

quickly life grows complicated for us! ” 

But nobody knew —nobody but Minerva, 
and she never told — just what ponderous ques¬ 
tion Sylvia and Daddy Jim settled there that 
vacation in the Little Gray House, under the 
rose-shaded lamp. 

It was a gray Saturday, the middle part of 
April. Sylvia was kneeling beside an old trunk 
in the little attic, gazing intently, with a puz¬ 
zled frown, at two pictures which she held 
in her hand. One was of a stately white house 
in the midst of a large, beautiful lawn, with 
fountains and wonderful flower beds and 
hedges. The other was the picture of a man 
with a thin face, and a small mustache, and 
a little round chin like a woman’s. The two 
pictures interested Sylvia greatly, for there was 
something strangely and hauntingly familiar 
about both of them, yet she was certain she 
had never seen either of them before. They 
had been hidden away here in the attic among 
other old pictures, books and papers for many 
long years. Searching for something with 
which to interest herself this lonely, rainy af¬ 
ternoon, she had come to the attic and discov- 


Sylvia Remembers 219 

cred the little old trunk standing far back 
under the eaves, covered with dust. 

She had been sitting for almost an hour, 
trying vainly to remember when and where she 
had seen that house, that face. There was 
something about the smooth lawn with its merry 
fountains that reminded her of the Garden of 
the White Butterflies and the Beautiful Lady 
seated under the old Elm tree. But it was all 
shadowy and vague, like a half-forgotten dream. 

It was growing dark in the attic when she 
finally heard Daddy Jim in the kitchen below, 
and hurried down to him, the pictures still in 
her hand. In answer to her eager, “ Look, 
Daddy Jim!” her father turned from lighting 
the lamp on the table. “ Did I ever see that 
house before?” she asked thrusting the picture 
before him. “ It seems so familiar — and yet 
I — I can’t quite remember.” 

Daddy Jim took the picture and his lips con¬ 
tracted suddenly as though in pain. 

“Yes, daughter, that is the house where you 
were born, and where we lived until you were 
about three years old.” 

“Oh!” cried Sylvia. 


“ Did we really live 


220 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

in as nice a house as that! Why you must 
have been rich, Daddy Jim!” 

“ Well, not rich — but very comfortable and 
happy, dear.” 

“ Why did you move away from it? ” asked 
Sylvia, still studying the picture. 

Daddy Jim dropped into a chair by the table. 
“ I would rather not talk about that now, 
Sylvia. Some other time — perhaps — if ever 
it should become necessary.” 

Suddenly his eye fell upon the other picture, 
lying on the table. He seized it, stared at it 
a moment, then with a single enraged gesture 
tore the heavy cardboard through the center. 

Sylvia looked at him in amazement. He 
was so rarely angry, so rarely moved from his 
quiet poise. She took a step backward in sud¬ 
den fear at the look in his eyes. 

“ Forgive me, Sylvia,” he said huskily, 
“I — I forgot for a moment. I didn’t know 
we had these pictures. They took me back to 
a time I have been trying hard to forget.” 

He looked at the torn picture in his hand, 
then, rising, he walked to the stove and threw 
the pieces into the fire. 


221 


Sylvia Remembers 

“ If it had not been for that man, dear,” he 
said shortly, “ we would still be living in the 
old home.” 

Sylvia had learned not to question further 
when Daddy Jim spoke in that final way. But 
she took the picture of the white house to her 
room and gazed at it often, with longing eyes, 
as though she could force it to give up the 
secret. And into her mind there flashed the 
angry words of Harry Warren that night so 
long ago in the tumbledown cabin, “ Who’re 
you to be sayin’ who’s good ’n who’s bad? 
Who knows anything about you?” 

She persistently put the thought away, but 
it as persistently came stealing back. She knew 
that Harry Warren was not the only one who 
had uttered a suspicion against Daddy Jim, but 
the others had had the grace not to voice it 
to his face. But then, she reasoned, Stubble 
folk were always a little suspicious of anyone 
who was different from themselves. And 
Daddy Jim was different — there was no doubt¬ 
ing that. He talked differently, he ate differ¬ 
ently, he knew much more than any of them; 
yet he was never superior, though always re- 


222 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

served; and surely he was as poor as all the 
others. 

The one thing that Sylvia regretted was that 
Daddy Jim’s poverty stood between him and 
the Lonely Lady. She had noticed of late how 
the Lonely Lady’s face would light up with 
gladness when Daddy Jim came into the room, 
and then grow strangely sad again, and she felt 
sure that the Lonely Lady would far rather be 
poor than lonely. 

But there was no arguing with Daddy Jim. 
He had forbidden her to tell his secret, and 
she would not for a moment think of betraying 
his trust. But she did wish with all her heart 
that in some way the happiness of these two 
people whom she loved so much might be 
brought about. 

There were so many Lonely Maidens whose 
Princes would never come, thought Sylvia with 
a sigh, that when the Prince was so near at 
hand, with the Lady waiting there on the Hill, 
it seemed a great pity that mere money—. If 
only she could find the man in the picture — 
the man who, Daddy Jim said, had been the 
cause of all his misfortune! She felt certain 


223 


Sylvia Remembers 

she had seen him, or a picture of him, some¬ 
where before. But Daddy Jim was just as 
sure she was mistaken. Yet the thin face with 
its little moustache and effeminate chin re¬ 
mained distressingly familiar to her. 

* 1 /. 

Vj> JfC <TP 4* 

The commencement festivities at Fairmont 
High School were almost over. There re¬ 
mained only the Senior dance and the gradua¬ 
tion exercises to wind up the school year. 

On the afternoon of the dance old Dr. 
Lynn tiptoed cautiously into the hall with a 
huge flat box on which was printed the name 
of Fairmont’s most exclusive store. Holding 
the box behind him, he looked about for Sylvia 
and found her at last in the library. She was 
seated at the piano, and on the bench beside 
her was a very good-looking, red-haired boy. 
His head was bent rather close to hers, and now 
and then they both laughed softly. 

Dr. Lynn retreated into the study near by, 
and there he discovered his only son slumped 
down in a big chair, his long legs stretched out 
before him, his hands in his pockets, and his 
chin sunk on his chest. 


224 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ Sleep? ” said the old doctor. 

Doctor Billy grunted in the negative. 

“ What’s that red-headed kid doing here so 
much lately? Is she going to the party to-night 
with him?” asked his father. 

Doctor Billy grunted again, this time in a 
disgusted affirmative. 

“Humph! Is he in love with Sylvia?” 

“Love!” groaned Doctor Billy with a 
vicious kick at the carpet. 

“ Well, do you think it’s all right? Do you 
think youngsters like that — ” 

“ No, I don’t. But I’m prejudiced. You 
know I undertook to be official escort to Sylvia 
— her father asked me to watch out for her. 
She seemed satisfied with the arrangement, but 
I told her that when her father withdrew his 
ban on beaux or when she grew dissatisfied 
with the arrangements, I’d retire automatically 
from the field — and I’ve retired! 

“ She and this red-headed youth, Ralph Den¬ 
ver, seem to like to be together — and I s’pose 
there’s no harm in it — only I didn’t want 
Sylvia — Oh, well, it takes more brains than I 
have to know how to properly bring up the 


225 


Sylvia Remembers 

young!” and Doctor Billy heaved such a pon¬ 
derous sigh and turned such an absurdly boyish 
face towards his father that the old doctor 
turned abruptly to hide a smile. 

“ Yes,” he agreed, with a reminiscent sigh. 
“ It takes more brain and more patience and 
more heart than most of us fools were born 
with!” 

There was silence while the old doctor stared 
thoughtfully at the box he carried. Then his 
face brightened. “Want to see the dress I 
got her? I s’pose Margery or some woman 
ought to have been there to help me pick it out 
— but I think it’s a lollypooloozer! ” 

He untied the box and revealed a lovely 
party dress of pale pink and gold. 

“ Doesn’t that look like her, now? ” he ex¬ 
ulted, holding the shimmering thing at arm’s 
length. 

Doctor Billy reached out and touched the 
soft folds gently. Then he suddenly sprang to 
his feet, and quickly crossing the room, stood 
staring gloomily into the fire. 


CHAPTER XIV 


Daddy Jim’s Story 

YLVIA sat curled up on the window 
seat in the cozy living room of the 
Little Gray House, lost in a book. 
She was startled by the sudden 
opening and closing of the kitchen door, and 
got quickly to her feet. There was a silence, a 
strange, portentous hush throughout the little 
house, and she felt, even before Daddy Jim 
entered the room, that something unusual — 
something dreadful — had happened. 

He came in very quietly, but his face was 
white. Carefully he pulled down the window- 
shades, leaving the room in darkness except 
for the firelight. Then he sat down in his big 
chair and held out his arms for Sylvia. 

“ Don’t look so frightened, little girl. I 
don’t want you to be frightened. You’ve al¬ 
ways stood by Daddy Jim like a brave little 
woman. You’re not going to fail him now!” 




227 


Daddy Jim s Story 

“No — no! ” cried Sylvia, throwing her arms 
about his neck. “ What is it, Daddy Jim? ” 

“Just that the thing I have been expecting 
and fearing all these years has happened at 
last! I had hoped, for your sake, to escape. 
Don’t tremble like that, Sylvia. It hurts me. 
I’m going to tell you the story briefly. You 
will understand, I know. 

“ That man, whose picture you saw, and I 
were partners. We took care of money for 
people who were not able to take care of it for 
themselves, and invested it. 

“ One day I learned that a certain mine in 
which we had put a great deal of money was a 
swindle, and that the authorities were about 
to arrest all connected with it. Your mother 
was very, very ill at the time, and the doctor 
had ordered me to go South with her imme¬ 
diately if I wished to save her life. I told my 
partner to sever all our relations with the mine, 
and to pay back every cent to the people whose 
money we had used. I checked out to him my 
own money — enough to more than pay my 
share of what would be lost in the swindle, and 
then I went away with you and your mother. 


228 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“A few days later I learned that he — my 
partner whom I had trusted — had disap¬ 
peared, taking with him all the money that was 
to pay back those people, many of whom were 
poor. And then the swindle was found out. I 
knew that if I went back I would be arrested 

— sent to prison, perhaps for many years; for 
I would not be able to prove my innocence. 

“ I knew that the disgrace and sorrow would 
kill your mother, for she was very ill. And 
then there was you — my little Sylvia. So, like 
a coward, I had to stay in hiding. 

“ I changed my name. Our real name, 
Sylvia, is not ‘ Gray,’ but c Graymore.’ Every 
cent I had left in the world went to pay back 
those people. We traveled about here and there 
for over a year. We would just get settled 
down somewhere, when I would recognize 
someone I had known, and we would have to 
move on. 

“ But your mother never knew I lied to her 

— told her the doctors advised her going to 
another climate, or trumped up some excuse, 
and she in her weakened condition never seemed 
to question our going. Finally, just before she 


229 


Daddy Jim s Story 

left us, I found this little out-of-the-way spot, 
and in spite of the ever-haunting fear that I 
might be discovered, we have lived in compara¬ 
tive peace since we came here, and I had almost 
ceased to fear — but now — to-day — ” 

“ Oh, what, Daddy Jim, what happened?” 
interrupted Sylvia, excitedly. 

Daddy Jim closed his eyes, and Sylvia’s arms 
tightened about his neck. “To-day — in town 
— I met a man I recognized as a detective from 
the city where we used to live. And he recog¬ 
nized me! I am sure he did. Any moment he 
may be here! And you — my little daughter — 
my poor little daughter — what will become 
of you? ” 

“But, Daddy Jim, it wasn’t your fault! 
And you paid them all back — those people!” 
cried Sylvia, trying to comfort him. 

“ Yes, dear, but that doesn’t help me. No 
one knows that it was I who paid — saved and 
sacrificed, and almost starved sometimes to pay 
every cent. I had to do it secretly, and I 
wouldn’t be able to prove that I was not con¬ 
nected with the swindle. 

“ But you and I know that I am innocent. I 


230 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

can’t leave you to fight your way alone, dear. 
We must go away, Sylvia — at once! Can you 
get together a few things — just the things you 
will absolutely need — and quickly, little 
daughter? ” 

“Yes, yes, Daddy Jim!” cried Sylvia, forc¬ 
ing back the tears that blinded her. “Oh!” 
she said suddenly, “that man — your partner 
— he could save you if he told the truth, 
couldn’t he, Daddy? ” 

“Yes, but we will never find him.” 

“Oh, why, why can’t I remember!” cried 
Sylvia, pressing her hands against her eyes. 
“ I’m sure— I know I’ve seen him somewhere. 
If I could only remember!” 

But Daddy Jim shook his head. “That 
isn’t possible, Sylvia. You were too young. 
Yet I believe you did say something once about 
a party that you remembered faintly, where a 
Gypsy girl danced, and a man clapped his 
hands. That girl, dear, was your mother; the 
man, my partner. He was fond of her — and 
she of him. That was another reason why my 
hands were tied — ” 

Sylvia gazed at him in silence for a moment 


231 


Daddy Jim s Story 

with an awed expression. Then with a sudden 
illuminating thought she exclaimed, “ But, 
Daddy Jim, I didn’t see that man’s face. His 
back was towards me. I didn’t see his face 
then, at all!” 

“ You may have seen him when you were a 
baby — he was often at our house. But you 
could not have seen him since. Please hurry, 
dear.” 

Five minutes later, Sylvia, up in her own 
little room, heard a sharp knock on the front 
room door—a silence — then the sound of 
Daddy Jim’s slow, hopeless footsteps. Then 
as the door was opened a man’s voice boomed 
out cheerily, “Hello, there, Graymore! I’m 
sure glad to see you after all these years. Be¬ 
lieve me, you’re the champion will o’ the wisp, 
though.” 

“ Come in,” said Daddy Jim, quietly. “ It’s 
getting cold out, isn’t it? ” He closed the 
door behind the man and lighted the lamp on 
the center table. The stranger kept his right 
hand carefully in his coat pocket. 

“Well!” said Daddy Jim in a husky, ques¬ 
tioning voice, turning from the table to face 


232 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

the man. His face was ashen, his dark eyes 
wore a tired, haunted look, and his shoulders 
drooped wearily. 

“ I suppose you know why I’m here, after 
all these years of merry chasing you’ve given 
me.” 

“Yes — I can imagine,” began Daddy Jim. 
“ I have known, of course, that you would 
come, some time, and I — ” 

A startled exclamation from the doorway 
caused both men to turn. Sylvia stood on the 
threshold, her slender figure in its blue gingham 
dress silhouetted against the darkness of the 
hall. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes 
wide with fear and wonder. 

“Great Scott 1” exclaimed the man, “what 
is that?” 

“That,” said Daddy Jim quietly, “is the 
reason I’ve given you these ‘ years of merry 
chasing ’ — that, and the fact that I am inno¬ 
cent— which, however, I do not expect you 
to believe.” 

The stranger looked from Daddy Jim’s white 
face to Sylvia’s flushed one, and put his hand 
in his coat pocket hesitatingly. His gaze wan- 


Daddy Jim's Story 233 

dered about the room, then, slowly with a kind 
of shame, he withdrew the hand from his 
pocket. “ I’m sorry, Graymore; I don’t blame 
you. But I — I guess there’s no help for it. 
I guess you’ll have to come with me. How 
soon can you be ready?” 

“ As soon as I — ” 

His reply was interrupted by a startled, in¬ 
coherent cry from Sylvia: 

“ Wait, wait — I remember—I know where 
I have seen him!” And dashing past the 
astonished two, she threw open the door and 
ran out into the night. 

The Lonely Lady sat staring at the white¬ 
faced little girl who had burst into her room 
and stood with a trembling finger pointing to 
a picture on the wall near the dressing table. 
It was the photograph of a thin-faced man with 
a little mustache and a small, weak chin. 

“ Who is that man?” she demanded ex¬ 
citedly. 

“That is my brother, dear. Why?” 

Sylvia turned pained eyes, heavy with misery, 
upon the Lonely Lady. “Where is he? Tell 
me quick! ” 


234 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ Why, child, what is the matter? He is 
dead,” she said softly. “ Didn’t you know?” 

Sylvia seemed, for a moment, unable to com¬ 
prehend the meaning of the Lonely Lady’s 
words. Then, as the force of the calamity broke 
over her, in a bitter wave of disappointment, 
she sank into a big chair, buried her face in 
her arms, and sobbed pitifully. 

The Lonely Lady flew to her and knelt be¬ 
side her. “ There, there,” she soothed, stroking 
the golden hair, “ what is it? Oh, my dear, 
what is it? Do try to tell me, Sylvia! What 
has happened?” 

“ My Daddy Jim — my Daddy Jim!” 
sobbed Sylvia. “ They’ll send him to prison 
now! That man in the picture was the only 
one who knew — and he is dead!” 

The Lonely Lady’s face grew as white as 
Sylvia’s own. “ What are you saying, child? 
Please, please stop crying,” she begged, “ and 
'try to tell me so that I can understand.” 

Sylvia raised her head and with a brave at¬ 
tempt to stifle the sobs, began: 

“ You see, our name is really not Gray, at all, 
but 1 Graymore,’ and — ” 


235 


Daddy Jim's Story 

“Sylvia!” cried the Lonely Lady, with 
trembling lips. “ And to think I did not know 
— all these years! How could I know?” 

She rose quickly and, crossing to her writ¬ 
ing desk, unlocked a small drawer with trem¬ 
bling fingers, and took from it a folded paper. 
“ Come,” she cried tensely, throwing a cloak 
about her shoulders, “ I must see your father 
at once.” 

Together they hurried down the hill to the 
Little Gray House, where the two men were 
waiting in wonder and anxiety for the return 
of Sylvia, who had left them so strangely. 

The Lonely Lady, her brown hair blown all 
about her sweet white face, went straight to 
Daddy Jim and held out the folded paper. 

“ To think,” she cried, “ that all the time you 
were so near me, while I was having you 
searched for all over the world. He was my 
half-brother — your partner! Our names were 
not the same. I didn’t know till now. It has 
been terrible for you, I know — but please 
don’t blame him too much,” she murmured 
with quivering lips. “ He was ill — he didn’t 
realize what he was doing. He died here a 


236 


Sylvia of the Stubbles 

year afterward. This is his confession. He 
didn’t want you to suffer.” She held out the 
paper, with a trembling hand. 

Daddy Jim slipped a supporting arm about 
her and led her to a chair by the fire. “ You 
should not have come out on a rainy night like 
this with those thin little slippers!” he said, 
anxiously, as though that were a greater mat¬ 
ter than the strange news she brought. As he 
knelt beside her chair to put more wood on 
the fire, the Lonely Lady leaned forward and 
laid her fingers tenderly on his arm. 

“ You have suffered,” she said in a pitying 
tone, as one might use in speaking to a hurt 
child. 

He turned and looked at her, and in the 
leaping light from the fire he saw that her 
eyes were glittering with tears. “ Yes,” he said 
quietly. 

“ I know,” she said softly. “ I have seen it 
in your eyes.” Then she went on quickly, as 
though there were no others in the room. 

“ I had never seen you. I lived with an aunt 
in the South. My brother came to me there. 
He told me he was in trouble — that he must 


Daddy Jim’s Story 237 

go away somewhere — where no one would 
know him — where he could be very quiet. 

“ I was worried. I thought he had to with¬ 
draw to some quiet spot because of his ill health. 
I did not know the whole truth until he was 
dying. An uncle had left us the house at the 
Stubbles, so we came here. When I found out 
the truth, I tried to find you. I have men 
searching for you still. I tried to pay back 
the people who had suffered by their losses, 
but I found some one had already done that. 
I have the money — your money — all safe. 
I’ve never touched any of it. My aunt died 
and left me all her fortune, but I couldn’t 
bear to face again any of the people I had 
known, so I stayed on here. 

“ Oh, you can’t imagine the agony of all 
these years, knowing that because of my 
brother’s misdeed you might be in want, know- 
that the shadow of the disgrace must be blight¬ 
ing your lives, as the worry of it was crushing 
mine.” She held out her hands with a gesture 
of despair. “ I used to think when Sylvia 
talked about the Dragon, and its fiery breath, 
so many years ago, how little did she dream 


238 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

that she had nearly guessed the truth.” 

Daddy Jim reached up and took her hand. 
u I am sorry that you had to know it all — 
that you have had to suffer—” 

Sylvia and the stranger had been standing 
by, mute spectators of the little scene, like a 
spell-bound audience at a play. But now the 
stranger stepped forward. “ In my business 
I’ve met up with some queer coincidences, but 
this is about the queerest. Might I see the 
confession, please?” 

There was silence in the little room, save for 
the crackling of the fire, as it snapped merrily, 
and cast a rosy glow over the faces of the three 
who waited and the one who read. 

“ This clears you, entirely, Mr. Graymore,” 
said the detective as he finished the last line. 
“ If I may take it with me, I won’t have to 
bother you again.” 

He reached for his hat, and in doing so his 
gaze rested upon Sylvia, standing with hands 
clasped tightly at her breast, her cheeks flushed, 
and golden hair in wind-tossed curls about her 
face. 

“ There’s one thing I would like to ask, 


Daddy Jim s Story 239 

though, and that is, how the young lady hap¬ 
pened to know? ” 

They all looked at Sylvia then, surprised not 
to have realized before that it was really she 
who had saved Daddy Jim. 

“ It was the picture,” she explained breath¬ 
lessly. “ I’d seen it once in the Lonely Lady’s 
room, but I had forgotten. When I found one 
like it in the attic, and Daddy Jim told me 
about it, I tried so hard to think where I had 
seen that man before. But I couldn’t remem¬ 
ber. Then when I saw you here” — turning 
to the detective — “ and knew that Daddy Jim 
would have to go to prison, I was too frightened 
to think any more. I suppose I — I was pray¬ 
ing, but something just seemed to tell me! I 
had to remember — and I did!” 

“ Well, it was a pretty lucky 1 remember,’ ” 
said the man gravely, shaking hands with them 
all. 

When he had left, Sylvia stole softly from 
the room, leaving Daddy Jim and the Lonely 
Lady sitting by the fire, talking softly and very 
earnestly. She did not think they would miss 
her just then. 


CHAPTER XV 


“ Happy Ever After ” 

N a chilly, rainy evening a week 
later, when the wind was blowing 
a fine spring rain against the window 
panes, and Daddy Jim had had to 
make a trip to one of the neighbor’s, Sylvia sat 
alone before the grate fire, and as she sat 
f there, watching the smoldering blaze leap into 
cheerful flame, softly hummed an old song 
Doctor Billy had taught her — something about 
“ Oh, pile a bright fire.” 

She knelt by the hearth and began to pop 
some corn. It was a rite that seldom failed to 
cheer her; she always felt as if she were a great 
magician who could set free the souls of the 
little brown kernels and turn them into lovely 
Fairy Things. The wind outside and the 
popping corn within prevented her from hear¬ 
ing anyone coming until the door opened and 

closed, and Doctor Billy stood in the room. 

240 





“Happy Ever After” 241 

“ Popcorn I” he exclaimed. “Good!” 

Sylvia passed him some from the big earthen 
bowl. 

“ You’re always offering substitutes,” he com¬ 
plained, looking at her reproachfully. “ It’s 
my heart, not my tummy, that’s hungry, Sylvia. 
Has Ralph Denver been here lately?” He 
looked about the room as if he half expected to 
see the “ red-headed kid,” as he called him, 
hiding behind some of the furniture. 

“ Yesterday,” nodded Sylvia. 

“Oh!” grunted Doctor Billy, glumly, then 
quickly, as an afterthought, “You aren’t ex¬ 
pecting him to-night, are you? Because if you 
are, I’ll go.” 

“ No — I’m not,” said Sylvia vehemently. 
“ He’s been rather pestering me lately, but I 
don’t think he’ll come again — I hope not.” 

“Pestering you! You hope not! Sylvia! 
Then you really don’t—”. Doctor Billy held 
out both hands excitedly, and Sylvia, with a 
rosy flush overspreading her face, filled them 
full of flaky popcorn. “ Sylvia of the Stubbles, 
look at me,” commanded Doctor Billy. 

Sylvia’s eyes did not waver as they met his, 


242 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

but it took all her strength and pride to keep 
them smiling and indifferent, and to still the 
frantic throbbing of her heart before his steady, 
searching gaze. 

“ No signs!” sighed Doctor Billy moodily. 

“ Signs of what? ” asked Sylvia. 

“ Oh, nothing,” he replied, dumping the pop¬ 
corn back into the bowl. “ I’ve just got into a 
habit of talking to myself. Don’t mind any¬ 
thing I say or do,” putting on his raincoat. 

“You’re not going!” exclaimed Sylvia. 
“ You’ve only just come! ” 

“ I know. I hadn’t seen you for so long, I 
— missed you — and as I had to come out here 
to the Stubbles to make a sick call, and had time 
for a mere peep at you, I thought I’d stop a 
second.” 

^ ^ vfc 

It was June again — a June of blue and 
golden days and moonlit, flower-fragrant 
nights; June bursting with bloom and color, 
light and laughter; June athrill with joy and 
happiness for Sylvia. 

Commencement was over. The last anxious 
examination had been crammed through; the 


“Happy Ever After" 


243 


last school song sung; the last class cheer given; 
the last earnest-eyed Senior congratulated — 
Sylvia’s high school days were ended. 

And then, while the tender, bewitching gla¬ 
mour of June magic still lingered over every¬ 
thing, there was a wonderful wedding at the 
Big House on the Hill, for the Dragon whose 
shadow had darkened the Lonely Lady’s door¬ 
way for so many years, and whose fiery breath 
Daddy Jim had often felt, had been slain, and 
Daddy Jim and the Lonely Lady, who was to 
be lonely no longer, were to be two of the hap¬ 
piest persons in all the world. 

On the wedding day, the hospitable rooms of 
the Big House on the Hill had been thrown 
open to all of the Stubble-folk, from feeble old 
Petey Swanson, whose rheumatism now rarely 
let him hobble far from his room back of the 
little store, to the tiniest Tweenie. Everybody 
at the Stubbles came, and from the Big Stone 
House at Fairmont came the Joneses, Hannah 
and old Doctor Lynn, holding his young grand¬ 
son’s hand and beaming with pride. 

Doctor Billy was best man, and Sylvia the 
only bridesmaid. And a very lovely bridesmaid 


244 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

she was with her fluffy dress the delicate color 
of a wild rose petal, her eyes like stars, and a 
bouquet of white roses from the Poet’s grave. 
She would have no other flowers, for she felt, 
somehow, that those roses brought a message 
from the Poet, and she gave them to the happy 
bride afterwards, as the Poet’s gift. 

After the guests, bounteously fed with good 
things to eat, and with something to talk about 
for many a day, had gone, Sylvia and Doctor 
Billy followed Daddy Jim and the Lonely 
Lady, who wasn’t going to be lonely any longer, 
to the big automobile which stood waiting to 
take them to the train. For the first time in 
many years they were leaving the Stubbles 
where fear and shame had held them so long. 

As she stopped to say good-bye, the Lonely 
Lady whispered, “ I wish you’d give me one 
little gift to take away with me, Sylvia — I’d 
like you to call me ‘ Mother ’ once — if you 
could, dear.” 

And Sylvia, pressing her radiant face against 
the bride’s cheek, whispered back, “ Dear Lady 
Mother!” then turned, with misty eyes to 
Daddy Jim, who held her close in his arms. 


“Happy Ever After” 


245 


“ You’re not going to be lonely without us, 
little daughter — are you? We’ll be back 
soon.” Then turning to the tall young man be¬ 
side her, who, just then, seemed to be very 
much interested in the beauties of the setting 
sun, he said, clasping his hand, “ Once more 
I’m going to ask you to take care of her for 
me until we return, Doctor Billy — you know 
she’s a wonderfully precious treasure, and I 
should like to feel that she’s in safe hands.” 

And Doctor Billy, clasping Daddy Jim’s 
hand, exclaimed, “ With all my heart!” 

Then, hand in hand, the little bridesmaid and 
the best man watched the bride and bridegroom 
as the big car slipped away on the long gray 
road that wound down over the hill, straight 
into the horizon, where the after-glow from 
the setting sun made a gateway of color. 

They stood there quietly for a moment, filled 
with the romance of the interval and inspired 
by the beauty of the scene. 

Finally Doctor Billy spoke, and his voice was 
husky with suppressed feeling, “ And they’ll 
live happy ever after, I suppose. Isn’t that the 
way the fairy story always ends?” 


246 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

“ And they’ll live happy ever after I ” echoed 
Sylvia softly, as though it were a prayer. 

Doctor Billy looked down at her, at the soft 
bright hair framing her dreamy, wistful face, 
lighted by a rosy glow from the western sky. 
She would be going away to college soon; she 
would have everything that a girl could want 
— the pinch of poverty, and the shadow of dis¬ 
grace were over; she was fine and sane and 
womanly. But at college there would be other 
red-headed boys, and brown-headed ones, toc^ 
while he was growing — well, not older, of 
course, for he had promised never to let his 
heart grow old, but maybe gray-headed — he 
couldn’t exactly help that, could he? Desper¬ 
ately, Doctor Billy threw aside his cautious 
policy of waiting and silence and plunged in. 

“ How about us?” he said abruptly. 

Sylvia looked up with startled, puzzled eyes. 
“ What do you mean, Doctor Billy? ” she ques¬ 
tioned. “ About us?” 

“That’s it!” grumbled Doctor Billy 
“ ‘ About us?’ Don’t you ever think of your¬ 
self — or me? ” 

“Oh, yes!” laughed Sylvia. Then with a 


“Happy Ever After” 


247 


quick change of subject, “ I’m sure the Poet 
knows and is very glad, even though he was 
mistaken about the Prince. The wild flowers 
have never been so lovely as this year. Don’t 
you think it’s his way of saying he is happy? ” 

“ Yes,” said Doctor Billy. “ He was a won¬ 
derful Poet, wasn’t he? But about this Prince 
business, Sylvia. Why were you so determined 
that I should not be the Prince to rescue the 
Lonely Lady? ” 

“ Because”— Sylvia hesitated, “ because — I 
wanted Daddy Jim to be. And because—”, she 
looked away, down the hill where the windows 
of the Little Gray House were alight with a 
wonderful fire, reflected from the setting sun. 

“Because—?” questioned Doctor Billy. 

“ Oh, look how the Little Gray House is 
smilingl ” 

But Doctor Billy deliberately turned his back 
upon the Little Gray House and took both of 
Sylvia’s hands in his. 

“ Because? ” he persisted. 

And since Sylvia was silent and would not 
lift her eyes to his, nor finish, Doctor Billy 
dared to finish for her. “ Because — some day, 


248 Sylvia of the Stubbles 

when we both get grown up, I’m going to be 
your Prince, Sylvia. Do you think I could?” 

“But I thought — we — once, oh, a long 
time ago, you said we weren’t ever going to 
let our hearts grow up, Doctor Billy,” mur¬ 
mured Sylvia very softly, with averted face. 
“ I think if mine grows much more it will — 
burst! ” 

And Doctor Billy, looking into her misty 
eyes, saw the something he had waited for so 
long, the something she had so carefully hidden 
from him. 

“ Sylvia! Some day you’ll let me be your 
Prince? ” 

“You have been — since I was seven, Doctor 
Billy,” she said, hiding her glowing face 
against his arm. “ But I thought you thought 
I was a baby.” 

“ And I thought you thought I was a grand¬ 
father! ” 

They both looked at each other and laughed 
joyously; then arm in arm they went down the 
hill, across the stubbled fields to the creek, 
where the wild roses made a bower over the 
spot where the Poet lay sleeping. And as they 


“ Happy Ever After 99 


249 


stood there in the hush of twilight, with only 
the robin’s plaintive good-night trill to break 
upon the rapture of their dreams, Sylvia raised 
tender, wistful eyes to Doctor Billy’s and said, 
tremulously, “ I wonder if the Poet knows — 
do you s’pose he does, Dr. Billy — and is 
glad?” 

“ I’m sure he knows — and is glad,” said Dr. 
Billy fervently, curling Sylvia’s little hand pro- 
tectingly in his firm fingers. And then he softly 
hummed, half under his breath, the Poet’s song: 

“ Oh, the Road was made for you and me, 
And every Flower and every Tree, 

For you have found the Road this day, 
Dear Princess of the Brightened JVay — 
The Road that was made for you and me.” 






































































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